Halo: The Intergalactic Wars
by Bien-128
Summary: REWRITE IS HERE: /s/5255048/1/Tales of A Confederacy The Intergalactic Wars
1. The First Conflict

UPDATE 2

Rewritten first chapter, and therefore; story is here: .net/s/5255048/1/Tales_of_A_Confederacy_The_Intergalactic_Wars 


	2. Black Holes and Revelations

A Hiigarian Heavy Cruiser, the _Interpolation_ was flanked by an 'enslaved' CUS Frigate, FFG/X-BRH "_The Corner of A Circular Room_", the frigate began firing her weapons at the _Interpolation._ Instead of the particle weaponry the other CUS ships fired, it fired projectile rounds. And her design looked older. The rounds exploded close to the _Interpolation_'s hull, showering her with shrapnel (not that it could do any damage) and a green paste. Reports came over the ship's comm saying

"This green, paste! It's taking my squad over. Oh Hiigaria! It's just like the Beast!" then a _hiss_ of static.

The _Interpolation_'s captain was surprised. His eyes wide open in shock, but he quickly regained his composure. He gave orders to seal all bulkheads, the heavy blast doors slammed down, but that did nothing to stop the spread of the green nanite paste, and the forward march of the 'enslaved'. Lt. Major Kiara Soban and her squad of warrior kiith ducked around a corner, an enslaved officer walked past, then three enslaved marines followed. Kiara made hand signals that roughly translated into:

"Move cautiously, keep away from the light, fire only when necessary. Go! Go! Go!"

The squad moved forward. A marine tripped on a cable, he fell with a _thump_ onto the metal floor, a passing enslaved officer heard the noise and began to investigate, she cocked her handgun and crept closer to where the squad was hiding. She raised her sidearm, she entered the dim hallway and looked around. Her eyes switching to light amplification mode, one of the many 'gifts' being enslaved brings. The officer saw the marines, she pulled the trigger.

The _Shadow of The Day_ fired her antimatter beams at individual targets. One beam found an 'enslaved' MRA Heavy Frigate, the beam sliced it cleanly in half, both halves drifted away from each other venting air and leaking plasma. Another beam gutted a UNSC Destroyer. A third engulfed a squadron of Seraphs and Longswords, and the fourth missed completely, creating a crated a third the size of Garden. Then another enslaved ship jumped in. High Admiral Kazimir recognized the ship, it was the CUS VNG-LHmk2BlkA (HABR) 1712 "_Lord Hood_", she was commanded by Rear Admiral Allan Gregor. The ships maneuvered, attempting to gain the upper hand. They were locked in heated battle, a close shot broke the _Lord Hood_'s sensor mast.

Kazimir rose from his command seat and took both plasma pistol shaped controllers, each had a variety of buttons and sliders, there were also two firing studs on each controller, Kazimir pressed a button, maneuvering controls were then redirected to him. He tilted both to the left and the ship rolled to avoid incoming fire, he tilted the left one forward and the right controller backward, the ship turned to face the _Lord Hood_. Kazimir slid three sliders on a controller forward and the ship lurched. Kazimir said

"WEPSCOM! Fire all broadsides!"

The turrets on the port side of the ship turned to track the _Lord Hood_, which was maneuvering to get a shot at her engines, the rear beam cannon opened fire on her engines, cutting them clean off. With the _Lord Hood _disabled, the _Shadow of the Day_ opened fire her port weapons emplacements belching magnetically accelerated particles, tungsten slugs, missiles, plasma charge torpedoes, laser light and antimatter beams. Explosions ripped all across the _Lord Hood_'s disfigured form, her weapons draining the last of the energy left in their capacitors, the first salvo from the _Shadow of the Day_ hit home, vaporizing armor and electronics alike. The _Lord Hood_'s left prong was ripped apart, pieces of it adding to the damage done. The PPC mounted as the _Lord Hood_'s main cannon detonated, sending energy all throughout the ship. Her electronics were almost fried, stunning her for a few seconds. The explosion also exposed one of her three tertiary reactors. The armor surrounding the containment field was visible. An antimatter beam broke the armor and the containment field alike, the fusion reaction went out of control, triggering a chain reaction, her tertiary reactors detonated, setting off the secondary antimatter reactors, and finally breaking the containment field around the point singularity reactor. The singularity collapsed inward, letting off a wave of pure energy. All of thin happened in less than a microsecond. The flash was so bright that it temporarily burned the _Lord Hood_'s final moment of existence into the retinas of anyone who was watching. The DACON AIs of the CUS and MRA fleets increased power to their shields tenfold, some of the battleships activated their SR Jump units to spare the Hiigarian and UNSC-New Covenant Fleets from the wave of energy. The energy washed over the ship's shields making them flare as bright as the sun, but they held up, the energy passed them and they beheld a beautiful yet deadly sight. A micro-nebula had formed from the vaporized material, and in the center of it was a small black hole. It was sucking wisps of gas, emitting X-Ray and infrared radiation. Thus illuminating the nebula. What looked like lightning flashed through some of the clouds and wisps of gas nearing the black hole. Kazimir cursed

"Damn! Shit!" then he shouted "Engineering! How much time do we have till the black hole engulfs us all! WEPRECOM (WEaPons REconfiguration COMmand)! Can you reconfigure the beams to emit Hawking radiation?"

The comm came on-line, the WEPRECOM Team Leader replied

"Yes sir! But it'll take me 'n 'our to make it work without an AI t' help!" He said in his rather strange accent.

Her eyes switching to light amplification mode, one of the many 'gifts' being enslaved brings. The officer saw the marines, she pulled the trigger. The handgun clicked! The clip was empty. The marine she was about to fire at raised his rifle. Then his eyes widened, the trigger was pulled back further, as he was about to shoot he whispered just loud enough for the officer to hear

"I'm sorry, Karina"

Tears began to well up in his eyes, the enslaved officer hung her head down in defeat. Then three muffled coughs came from the barrel of the rifle he was holding, three bullets sleeted through the air and hit the officer's forehead, bits of brain matter, shards of bone and a spray of blood shot out of the back of her head, all of which were streaked with green. The marine fell against the wall, sobbing. Kiara walked over to him, she patted him on the shoulder saying "Don't worry, that's what she wanted you to do. End her suffering, all the pain she was going through." the marine looked up at her, his eyes red. He nodded then he stood up again.

_This night, walk the dead _

_In a solitary style_

_And crash the cemetery gates. _

_In the dress your husband hates_

_Way down, mark the grave_

_Where the search lights find us_

_Drinking by the mausoleum door_

_And they found you on the bathroom floor_

He loved her, now there was an emptiness in his chest, he thought that there was no one left to live for.

_I miss you, I miss you so far_

_And the collision of your kiss that made it so hard_

All of his memories regarding her flashed before his eyes, when they first met, their first kiss during the ball, when they signed up in the navy, when he gave her an engagement ring. Up to the time he shot her.

_Back home, off the run_

_Singing songs that make you slit your wrists_

_It isn't that much fun, staring down a loaded gun_

_So I won't stop dying, won't stop lying (are you there at all?)_

_If you want I'll keep on crying (do you care at all?)_

_Did you get what you deserve? (are you there at all?)_

_Is this what you always want me for?_

Then he heard a voice call out, _her_ voice, she said "I love you, keep fighting for my sake, for your sake, for the people. I'll miss you."

_I miss you, I miss you so far_

_And the collision of your kiss that made it so hard_

_Way down, way down _

_Way down, way down _

_Way down, way down _

_Way down, way down _

_I miss you, I miss you so far_

_And the collision of your kiss that made it so hard_

_When will I miss you, when will I miss you so far_

_And the collision of your kiss that made it so hard_

_Made it so hard_

_Way down, way down_

_Way down, way down _

_Way down, way down_

_Way down, way down_

_Way down._

Merin S'jet thought it was the end, especially when the wave of energy came surging toward her, that is until the massive bulk of a CUS Dreadnought blocked her vision, the massive ship's shields taking the brunt of the energy wave _for _the Mothership. The wave passed them and Merin stood there, shocked and awed, she recovered and hailed the _Shadow of the Day_.

"This is the Mothership hailing the _Shadow of the Day_. Please respond!"

A million questions ran through her head, _Why did they save us? How did that ship move so quickly? __Am I still alive?_ Were the most important questions. A screen flashed to life in front of her, the screen was taken up by the CUS Emblem, then the emblem shrunk and moved to a corner of the screen, a bar at the bottom read: High Admiral and President of the Confederacy of United Suns, Kazimir McDougal. However, she was surprised not only of the fact that he looked human, but also looked not a day above twenty. _He looks rather... dashing._ Merin thought, he had what appeared to be two irises, the inner one yellow and the other one an ice blue, and his black hair had streaks of royal purple. _It must be contact lenses and hair dye. _She thought again, the man spoke

"Yes. Now why are you hailing us?" He said "And why in hell did you attack us in the first place?"

She chose her words carefully, as battle reports and visual feeds showed that they could completely annihilate their fleet in a massed alpha strike if they wanted to. Merin took a deep breath.

"I am hailing you to ask this, why did you save us? We did fire upon you. And the answer to your query is that it must have been one of the rounds from the UNSC ships, a glancing blow was enough to make one of our cruisers list to port and misfire. I guess I have screwed up." she said.

Kazimir nodded

"Well I propose a cease fire, as we have a more pressing matter on hand" The camera panned to show an enslaved CUS-FFG/X-IBR 1245/2 "Crystal" Class Experimental Infiltration Blockade Running Frigate dive headfirst into the event horizon of the black hole, Kazimir added "Say, can you modulate your jump drives and weapons to emit Hawking Radiation, I'll beam data to you."

Merin said "I accept the cease fire." The data on Hawking Radiation showed up "And yes, I think we can do this." Then the screen split into three, one of the thirds was of course Kazimir, another was a symbol that looked vaguely familiar (The Mark of Shame), and was replaced by a scaly four mandibled creature that was surprised to be talking to humans, and another was a giant bird of prey holding a lightning bolt in one claw and a planet in the other claw. It too was replaced by another human, only Kazimir didn't look surprised to be talking to more humans. The four mandibled creature spoke first

"Humans, we need to flee this accursed black hole." It said "And yes human, we can modify our weapons to emit this 'Hawking Radiation' you speak of. And I apologize for melting your ships into slag."

The other Human, Admiral Bourne's Second In Command Kaden Stone spoke up

"Then we must all work together for this to work!"

Merin replied "Our jump drives cannot function within gravity wells." she added "So my fleet must stay here and fix this."

The alien spoke "No, we will not allow you to perish to this black hole." it added "You will live to fight another day."

Kazimir and Kaden nodded. "We'll also stay here." a Sentinel flew in beside Kazimir and said "Creator, the Flood are present! We must destroy them at once!"

Kazimir was shocked, so was Stone and the four mandibled creature. "It seems that they were not destroyed after all, even after our ancestors triggered the Halo Array."

Meanwhile, in a galaxy far, far away. The remnants of the evil Galactic Empire. Now under the iron fist of Empress Domina (Her real name being Elizabeth Steiner (Mechwarrior Fans should get the hint)), rebuilds in thee outer rim of the galaxy, and beyond. Their new fleet consisting of millions of ships ranging from Frigate to Dreadnought class prepare to begin their first assault. The First Imperial Battlegroup, under the command of Domina herself pave the way to the defeat of the New Republic.

The Super Star Destroyer "_Infinitude_" begins her shakedown cycle. The rest of the fleet, thousands of Star Destroyers guard the _Infinitude _as she warms her hyperdrive. The rest of the ships do the same. And the battlegroup accelerates into hyperspace. Their first target: Kamino, to secure the cloning facilities to expand their armada.

Domina stood on the bridge, her jet black robes ruffling as she moves. She looked out of the transparisteel viewport, watching the stars blur into starlines, then into the mottled red of hyperspace. An engineer reported

"Empress! The mass jump has caused a graviton wave to make our hyperdrives malfunction! We're completely off-course! We are emerging near a black hole."

An officer reported

"Empress! There are ships of unknown classification clustered near the black hole! They seem to be emitting a form of radiation that seems to be decaying the black hole." his eyes widened in surprise, the fleet now completely exited from hyperspace. "By the Empress! Those ships are massive! The largest ship dwarfs our flagship by 3.562 Kilometers."

Domina said "Interesting. We'll see their combat strength soon enough. To see if we are worthy in joining us in the path of conquest. All ships fire at will!"

Another officer objected "I urge not to ma'am, I am detecting massive energy spikes coming from some of those ships. And those are just reactors. We also don't know where we are, so we can't call for reinforcements!"

Domina stopped for a second, considering what he had just said. Then she reached out with the Force and slowly crushed his spine. Saying

"And so the better. We will crush them with impunity!"

The officer's neck contorted at an odd angle, a _snap _was heard, the body fell to the metal floor with a _thump_.

"Daala! You will now take his place. What you have seen is the price of insubordination!" the Empress said. The female officer replied "I will not fail you.", Daala motioned for the guards to dispose of the body..

Kazimir looked at the TACMAP (TACtical MAP). There were hundreds. No, thousands of ships emerging from slipspace!

"Whoa! he said.

His SCANCOM officer reported, breaking Kazimir from his reverie "I'm picking up energy spikes all across the new fleet. They're powering weapons and shields! They're attacking!" she almost shouted the last sentence.

Kazimir cursed "Shit!"

The New Covenant Fleet Master and the UNSC Admiral cursed at the same time "Damn!"

Kazimir then said "So now it's a three sided battle, the black hole on one side, the Flood on the other and these arrowhead shaped ships on another."

Glowing rectangular fields of energy materialized around the Confederates' ships. Their weapons began to warm. Those were picked up on the Imperials' Sensors. Beads of sweat began to form on everybody's foreheads. No one wanting to fire the opening shot. The Confederate fleet turned to bear their main cannons on the Imperials. The tension increased, and the Imperials opened fire. A tidal wave of turbolaser bolts rushed forward, only to be intercepted by the advanced point defense grids the CUS employed. Then hundreds of beams lanced through the void, bright enough to leave a temporary after image. The _Shadow of the Day _and some of her escorts broke free and used their SR Jump Units to get behind the enemy. An antimatter beam, courtesy of the _Shadow of the Day _bisected a Star Destroyer.

Kazimir barked "All support craft! Fire FROSCH guns and LANCET beams. Aim the LANCET beams at the globes on top of the towers.", the AIs across the fleet coordinated so that not one globe was hit twice. The support craft fired simultaneously, the concentrated tachyon burst tearing through the electronics of the sensor/shield globes, taking them out with one hit! That left a small but significant fraction of their fleet blind and naked. MAC rounds completely ignored shielding and armor, severely damaging or destroying the Star Destroyers, then the FROSCH bolts arrived, stunning the enemy ships long enough for the rest to finish them off. Superheated plasma washed over their deflector shields, only mildly scorching the hull underneath. The particle weaponry the CUS employed was extremely effective against deflectors and hull alike. CUS Frigate fired upon a Star Destroyer, the first three shots taking the shields off-line. Then the rest of the bolts leaving deep gashes where they struck, the edges orange hot. The only real damage the Imperials did was against the UNSC, but they were paying it back in their own blood.

Fifteen Imperial Troop Transports got through the powerful point defense systems and fighter screens, as they were tied up with the TIE Fighters. They landed in the main hangar bay of the _Shadow of the Day,_ their ramps dropped. Dozens of Stormtroopers walked out, shooting their blasters at any personnel and equipment. To their surprise it was remarkably empty. An R2 unit locked the main doors, leaving only one of the secondary doors open. The Sith Warriors they brought along with them readied their lightsabers and double-sabers. The secondary door slid open, a small cylinder rolled across the floor, the Stormtroopers near it looked at it and realized what it was, just as one was about to kick it away, it exploded! Superheated plasma burnt away armor and flesh alike. Then in the confusion, the main doors opened. Revealing a squad of five CRUSADERS (They're like SPARTANS, only with better armor and training. Each one has their personal AI. They were derived from the SPARTAN II-III projects actually, as mentioned in Chapter 1.), a rectangular energy shield was being emitted from their left, or sometimes right forearms. They formed a wall with the shields, free hands holding their ARR7D rifles. Snickers were heard amongst the Stormtroopers, some of the Sith joining in. One threw a Thermal Detonator as part of a dare into the formation. One of them picked it up and threw it back at the thrower with enough force to shatter his chest plate and send him back further into the line. It exploded and the CRUSADERS blurred into action, they covered the distance between them in less than a second, a CRUSADER, by the designation of Kelly-058 gave an uppercut to a Stormtrooper, his head losing connection with his neck. Then she activated the telescoping mono-molecular blade attached as bayonet under the grenade launcher. It sliced clean through a Stormtrooper even before he knew what was happening. One of the snipers present in the Stormtrooper squad shot Kelly in the head, and was shocked to find a shimmering energy field enveloping her. She turned and shot a rail-round into his skull, spreading his head across the wall a hundred meters behind him. A Sith warrior lunged at Fred, the CRUSADER/SPARTAN Team's Hand to Hand and melee weapons specialist. Fred drew an odd looking sword, it was two pronged, and thus it looked like a giant fork. Energy crackled around the blade and in a flash of light, the blade was surrounded by energy. Fred blocked the blow, then he parried. The lights dimmed and changed their color to red, Kazimir had ordered all non-essential systems to be deactivated or put into stand-by mode. Fred was blocking and dodging blows, _This robed guy is good. _He thought, whenever his blade struck the blade of the light saber, a small thunderclap was heard. They were weaving bands and ribbons of light across the darkness.

Kelly took several blaster shots to the chest, and her shields dropped by ten percent, then by fifty. She took cover behind one of the crates scattered around the bay, and to her luck. It read "SERAPH Class Invisibility Cloaks Mk. X15, AEGIS Class Overshields Mk. X11" she tore the crate open and broke the casing of a SERAPH. The energy enveloped her and she became invisible, it did not give away the user's position while moving and lasted much longer than the previous Mk 10-14s, one Stormtrooper looked around the crate and reported

"Sir! I can't find that armored droid or soldier! I did not see it-" he stopped, and fell to the floor. His neck broken, another Stormtrooper was shot in the stomach, his entrails now decorating the floor around him. Another lost his head, bits of armor, bone and brain matter on display around where he was standing.

A barrage of blaster shots brought Kelly's shields down to ten. She was pissed, _very_ pissed. She then retreated, only to get a running start. Kelly soon reached 125 Km/H, two and a half tons of angry CRUSADER bore down on a Stormtrooper, she reached out with a fist and connected with his chest. The armor shattered like glass, her fist shattering bone, ripping flesh and smashing his heart in. The trooper flew against into a wall and left a very unsightly mess there. The Crusader's' radios clicked on

"Blue Team, I'm sending two marine squads to your position. Along with a Cobra Class MBT. Have fun!"

The doors opened again, and two squads of twelve stepped out, their navy-blue armor had a startling resemblance to MJOLNIR MKV Powered Armor. They wielded particle rifles, which looked like a Steyr Aug crossed with a Barrett and a AR15. The marines spread out and opened fire, the deadly particle bolts seared and ripped Stormtrooper armor and the soft flesh beneath it apart, Stormtroopers fell like flies, the remaining Stormtroopers turned to face the new threat, and again a shimmering energy field enveloped dissipated the energy. Three blaster shots downed one of the marines shields. Then one bolt hit him square in the chest, making a portion of his chest plate red hot. Another bolt hit it and blew through the armor, searing through flesh and bone.

* * *

AN: Should I remove the song part, that was courtesy of my female cousin. Anyway, review please!


	3. Insult to Injury

The marine fell, his armor fused to his flesh by the blaster bolts. One of his friends shouted

"You bastards! I'll make you pay." she said, then she ignited a Proton Grenade, set it for a three second timer and threw it like a football "Eat this!" she screamed.

The grenade's propulsion system and guidance system came on-line when it left her hand. Confederate Grenades were more like hand thrown missiles, the grenade stabilized and streaked across the hangar, leaving a trail of white smoke in its wake. The grenade's Ion thruster ran out of Lithium-Plus, it fell out of the air and rolled into the same squad that killed her friend. The internal timer _clicked _to zero and it detonated. The Stormtroopers' brain stopped working as protons seared through flesh. One of them fired his last trio of shots into one of the fuel tanks scattered across the bay. It exploded into an orange and red ball of fire, spreading white hot fuel across the floor. The shock wave knocked everyone to the floor, except the sith and the Crusaders, they stumbled and resumed fighting.

Fred was blocked a thrust with his blade, and was pushed back by some unseen power. Then he was lifted and slammed into a wall. _Shit!_ He thought, then he fired his energy pistol at his opponent, amazingly he deflected the shot. Fred fell from the wall and charged, the sith warrior did too, and jumped. Fred jumped and ignited his MERCURY Jet-Propulsion system, which came standard with every variant of THOR Mk-172/98 Powered Assault/Infiltration Armor. Fred accelerated to around 376 Km/H. He extended his blade just as his enemy passed, cutting, fusing and cauterizing flesh, he was cut clean in half, but just before the Sith warrior died, his blade cut Fred's hand off. Fred deactivated his MERCURY and landed on the ground missing a hand. He radioed

"This is Fred, I require immediate medical assistance!" he added "I'm missing a hand."

TIE Fighters were swarming around a Hiigarian Heavy Cruiser, they were doing strafing runs across her hull, attempting to hit vital components. A viewport shattered when multiple blaster bolts struck it. The compartment explosively decompressed, sending men, equipment and atmosphere out into the void. In a neighboring compartment, a First-Homeworld War Veteran remarked

"This was like when we were stuck in the Garden of Kadesh, we were being swarmed by Kadeshi Swarmers!"

Everyone around him nodded in agreement. A Cataclysm War Veteran then added

"Also like when the Beast attacked us once, those colony ships never stood a chance!"

Several _thumps_ rang out and the ship shook, everyone fell to their feet. A squadron of TIEs had crashed into the ship. Then a mixed squadron of Confederate Sparrowhawks, Hiigarian Interceptors and Acolytes, UNSC Longswords and New Covenant Seraphs flew across the open viewport, the lead Sparrowhawk (Fox-1) mounted dual Rapid-Firing Heavy Particle Projectors (RFHPPC), another (Fox-3) mounted a Pack/Ripple Firing Guided Missile Launcher (P/RFGML) along with a RFHPPC, and the third (Fox-2) mounted two Particle Lance Projectors (PLP), one of the Seraphs peeled off and blasted a TIE Interceptor to bits with its Plasma Cannons, a Longsword opened fire with its tracking Autocannons, ripping two TIE Fighters to bits, Fox-3 targeted fifteen TIE Interceptors and ripple fired, which confused the Imperial Pilots, some of them smashed into their comrades, others were caught by the missiles and exploded! Three of the TIEs survived the barrage of fire, one had his left 'wing' clipped off by a PLP, another was speared by a RHHPPC bolt, another turned back and was turned into scrap metal by a single well-aimed Missile. The mixed squadron then found a tastier target. An _Evangelion _Class Super Star Destroyer, one of the ten Super Star Destroyers in the Imperial Fleet they were currently facing now. It was too far to be attacked by any of their fleet's vessels, so it was up to the Strike Wings to do the job. Confederate bombers were taking formation behind the mixed squadron. Several more Interceptors from the fleets joined formation, eventually forming a Delta-Wall, covering the bombers they wove through the Imperial Star Destroyers to get through to their target. One of the bombers was shot down, another rammed into one of the Shield/Sensor globes on top of the towers. The Strike Wing got through and was faced by hundreds, no. Thousands of TIE Fighters. One of the UNSC pilots cursed

"Shit! How are we gonna get through this!" he added "It's suicide I tell you! Suicide!"

One of the Confederate pilots replied

"We'll get through this soldier. I agree with you though!" he said.

A growl came though the comm channel "Die filth! You will roast and wither over the flames of revenge!" said the voice.

A voice came over the channel, it belonged to Kazimir "I'm ordering a Frigate Wing to cover you! Enjoy your kills!"

And just as Kazimir ended three CUS FFG-PD/A 0010 "Coreen" Class Point Defense Frigates, two CUS FFG/H 0011 "Orion" Class Heavy Frigates and one CUS FFG/H-BV 0011 "Orion-B" Class Heavy Beam Frigates appeared in a flash of light.

Sub-Admiral Sunder Depth, CO of the _Hand of the Colossi_, the same Super Star Destroyer the Fleets were attacking laughed.

"Only six of their puny frigates and a Strike Wing!" he said "They will be crushed under our might!"

The ship shook, the port sensor dome was knocked out. One of the silver, royal purple and yellow ochre bombers launched three Plasma Charge Torpedoes, the remaining sensor dome was slagged, a chain reaction ripped through the ship and permanently disabling her shields. Sunder cursed

"Damn!" he said "Open fire on the nearest enemy frigate! Divert all remaining power to the turbolaser batteries."

Commodore Sara Cassler maneuvered her precious frigate, the _All That is Above _through the firestorm that was being cooked up by the Super Star Destroyer, her point defense was straining to repel boarders and keep the ship safe from harm. The ship shook. Her DACON AI reported

"Ma'am! Our center-port shield has collapsed! Its capacitors are blown."

Explosions were appearing all across the ship, she was blackened and some of the armor was glowing red hot. But she still kept on fighting, Energy Bolt Launchers were slagged, so she had to make do with her Particle weapons. A large fireball blossomed, and the thruster mounted on her port wing was blown off.

"Ma'am! We slower by fifteen percent, and we are less maneuverable by twenty five!" the DACON AI said.

Turbolaser bolts were tearing molten chunks of metal off the ship, another fireball blossomed and her energy weapons went off-line. They had destroyed the main capacitor bank.

"Oh shit!" Sara cursed "Turn to face that Super Fucking Star Destroyer then go into after burn!"

The ship groaned as stressed and heated meta bent and buckled. Then the ship's engines came on-line for the finale. The Super Star Destroyer came into view and grew larger.

An officer under the command of Sunder reported

"Sir! They're ramming us!"

A white hot beam lanced forward from between the prongs of the _All That is Above_ and skewered one of the turbolaser batteries, hundreds of missiles flew from the mounted missile launchers. Trails of white smoke ending in Super-Hardened Warhead Anti Ship Missiles, they were designed to penetrate armor and explode underneath. The SSD's point defense struggled to shoot down the missiles, but each missile had an ECM suite, the missiles impacted. Small explosions blossomed across the ship, and the _All That is Above_ plowed head-on into the ship. Their superstructures interlocked. Then the frigate detonated, taking a sizable section of the ship out.

Sunder shielded his eyes from the impossibly bright flash of light, but the shock wave that followed a trillionth of a second later sent him sprawling to the floor, the _All That is Above_'s final moment of retribution permanently burnt into his retinas. It remained a ghostly silhouette.

She was still functioning though. The strike craft were taking care of that. Fox-3 got away from the SSD and pack fired, fifteen missiles sped through the void between them and detonated on impact, leaving fifteen ragged holes on her hull. Then Fox-2 opened fire with the PLPs, the beams sliced off two turbolaser batteries and left deep gashes in her hull. Fox-1 fired her RFHPPCs and left one meter wide holes, edges torn and melted. A Confederate Bomber Wing launched Plasma Charge Torpedoes, the torpedoes produced plasma on their way to the target. The torpedoes impacted, spreading their deadly payload across the SSDs hull. Leaving it melted, blackened and scarred. The Point Defense Frigates were also using their Particle Sprayer batteries to good effect against not just TIEs but also as strafing weapons against the SSD. Miniature explosions dotted the ship's hull as particle bolts designed to intercept anything thrown against the ship slammed into armor and transparisteel. The shattered view ports leaking atmosphere, sometimes laced with clouds of blood.

The damaged Super Star Destroyer creaked and moaned with the stress pressed upon it. She struggled to maneuver back into the safety of her escorts. Several explosions rocked the ship, sending crew tumbling. Then the lights went off, to be replaced by the red emergency lights. An energy bolt streaked through the ship, leaving a wake of destruction in its path. LANCET Beams streaked through the debris littered space, severing control lines. Once the engines were out, several Hiigarian Salvage Corvettes, Confederate Capture Frigates and New Covenant Tugs moved in with the help of the _Shadow of the Day_'s advanced S/MR Jump units, the Confederates flanked the ship, locked tractor beams onto the ship, the Hiigarians and New Covenant helping along. They were headed to the MS/FT 2999 "Baguio" a Confederate Mobile Shipyard/Fleet Tender, the Confederates moved closer to the Imperials, for two purposes, to bear their shorter range weapons and to provide an escort for the Super Star Destroyer. Confederate AIs had hacked into the ship's mainframe, disabling all override commands and access codes, thus preventing the Imperials from self-destructing. The Imperial commanders began to sweat as the _Shadow of the Day _moved at considerable speeds, the antimatter beams slicing through anything and everything in their paths, a Star Destroyer moved into her path, and was subsequently smashed against her hull. The Star Destroyer exploded in a flash of light and a orange-white ball of fire. The _Shadow of the Day_ however was unscathed. She then unleashed her fury in the form of a graviton wave, the wave tore hull plating apart like roof shingles in a hurricane. The enemy ships were stripped of armor in sections which were hit by the wave, their superstructures clearly visible, atmosphere, droids and humans alike were sucked out of the compartments, some of the ships were disabled by the attack. Some of the ships attempted to retreat, but could not jump out because of the black hole, and others could not maneuver properly because of the tightly packed formation the Imperial fleet took up. Even the Empress was hesitant, she had her escort ships move away from the battle.

The CUS-FFG 0023 "_Authority_" shook, sending crew stumbling. Her captain, Stuart Dragonuv shouted

"What the hell!" he summoned his DACON AI "What hit us!"

The AI replied in a grim tone

"It was the flood, sir!"

"Damn! In all this chaos, we forgot about the flood." he ordered "Seal all blast doors and depressurize all affected sections! Have us run on emergency air supplies."

There was a _hiss _of air rushing from the affected sections, and the _thump, thump, thump, _Of blast doors closing. The _whine_ of the emergency air supplies being used. There was a tense silence. All of the crew hoping it was just a false alarm. The DACON AI then brought up visual confirmation. Infection forms rolling and running across all surfaces, followed by Combat and Carrier forms, and the dreaded Pure forms. An eerie, echoing, silent yet sinister voice came over the comm

"This is not my grave. But I am stealing it." it added "The father's sins pass onto his sons, child of my enemy. Join your voice with mine and sing the song of everlasting victory!" the voice rose to a shout "I am the Gravemind!"

Stuart opened a direct link to the CUS, MRA, UNSC, Hiigarian and New Covenant Fleets

"The Gravemind! It's here. The Flood has landed on my ship, we're doing our best to control them! I repeat! The Flood is here!"

Kazimir, Stone, S'jet and the New Covenant Fleet Master heard the message. They opened comm links.

S'jet asked "What is this 'Flood' he speaks of?"

Stone replied "It is a parasite, it almost infested our galaxy on two occasions! Around a hundred thousand years ago and just a few years ago!" he added "I'll send the data to you."

The data appeared in her mind, she shuddered at the new memories.

"This 'Gravemind' was destroyed when Spartan-117 destroyed the 'Ark'." she asked "So how could it be that it's here? Now!"

Kazimir shook his head and sighed. "We have to get out of this sand-cursed place now! Either way, we lose. The bastards will overpower us, and the Flood will infect us all." he turned his head and addressed Stuart "You know what to do. Letting the Flood capture even one ship will doom us all."

Stuart replied "It has been an honor serving beside you Kazimir, and you too my men!"

The _Authority _exploded in a blue, white and orange ball of flame, leaving only dust particles behind.

Kazimir said with a hint of sadness in his voice "We have to destroy this system. We'll use our Quantumbuster Bombs to make the star super-flare, irradiating the Flood and those bastards. Then my fleet will use our graviton beams to push the planet and its moons into the black hole."

Everybody was shocked, then the conference dissolved into chaos, questions were bombarding Kazimir, and he tried to answer the rapid-fire questions to the best of his abilities.

"Our ships will form a slip space bubble around our fleets, so it would be best to have our ships assume a spherical formation, largest ships in the center, the smaller ships outward." he added "I'll stay behind and launch another Quantumbuster into the fray." he finished "And since this is their galaxy." he motioned to S'jet "We'll head for the nearest military installation.

The Confederates locked tractor beams on the moons, forcefully shoved them into the black hole at the same time launching Quantumbusters into the sun. They CUS Fleet formed a slip space bubble around the fleets, using their jump drives. Then they vanished in a flash of light and a small shockwave. The _Shadow of the Day _threw several Quantumbusters into the Flood and Imperial fleets, the Quantumbusters detonated. Converting matter into energy, not that several were needed, the maximum effective blast radius was 1 AU. The sun imploded, a few seconds passed and exploded, showering the remnants with superheated plasma. The black hole also collapsed after the massive amounts of Hawking Radiation thrown at it. The _Shadow of the Day _engaged her jump drives, and disappeared, following the fleets to the nearest stronghold, Tanis Base.

Empress Domina was enraged, her Super Star Destroyer and its escorts nearly being destroyed by the super-weapons the Confederates employed. She almost eradicated her own fleet, and being unable to follow the fleets into hyperspace only made her more vicious than a thousand starved banthas.

She however, was able to find a way to get back to her galaxy and return here. She would exact her revenge.

"Talk about adding insult to injury!" Kazimir muttered.

The _Shadow of the Day _was still under siege by the Stormtroopers left in the hangar. Confederate Marine Corps First-Sergeant Zyberiak was in a crouch, holding his particle rifle by the barrel. He had ran out of ammo ages ago, so now he was beating them to death with the rifle quite easily, his armor enhanced his strength so that he could lift twelve tons over his head quite easily. Another Stormtrooper fell with his face smashed in. He heard a deep _bang_ and the largest concentration of Stormtroopers met a very messy end. Blood, bone and flesh flying everywhere, but the tank was practically useless since all of the Stormtroopers were scattered around the room. Then an explosion! Zyberiak looked behind him, the tank was on the floor, burning and belching smoke into the air. Two of its six anti gravity pods were in pieces, the turret was missing. A person clad in a black robe wielding one of the energy sabers was standing beside it. _Damn!_ Zyberiak thought. Even the Crusaders were eventually injured by these strange men. He said over the team channel "Squad! Form up and retreat! The Crusaders are out of the game."

Green acknowledgment lights flashed on his HUD. He found a few particle charges and a quarter-drained Streaker Class Anti-Armor Particle Beam Cannon (AAPBC) scattered around a fallen marine. He paid respect for the dead, picked up the charges and allowed the magnetic plates on his back to hold the Streaker, he slammed a charge into the receiver and heard the satisfying _hum _of the rifle taking the charged particles from the charge. The ammo counter on the rifle updated with its cousin in his HUD. He fired particle bolts into the attacking Stormtroopers, they fell with smoking holes in their skulls and chests. He took the Streaker while replacing it with the particle rifle, he set it on his shoulder and took aim. He set it to full power and fired at a troop transport, which was firing blaster cannons at his marines, the beam sliced through the cockpit and the engine, it fell to the floor, flames belching out of the three holes in its shell, it exploded soon after. He fired some more beams at the Imperial Troop Transports, which were trying to evade in the cavernous hangar bay. One dodged a beam by mere inches, the heat making the paint _fizzle_, only to slam into another Troop Transport. One was sliced in half, then into quarters. Zyberiak was content with the destruction he was causing when the Beam Cannon died, the lights and displays dimmed and turned black. Then he heard a _hiss _when he attempted to reactivate it. The battery was drained. He attached an activated plasma grenade to the beam cannon and threw it at a Stormtrooper, he caught it and fell. The grenade detonated in a blue-white flash. He ran through the automatic doors and activated the emergency blast doors. Heavy metal doors slammed down, on the secondary doors and the main hangar doors, then shields came on. Zyberiak keyed the mic

"Zyberiak to _Shadow of the Day _command crew. I want hangar A-15 explosively decompressed. Enemy concentration is too high." he said, adding emphasis on the words 'explosively' and 'high'.

The loud _bang _of the explosive charges that were designed to free the outer doors in the event of them being jammed or to prevent boarders from escaping. Zyberiak looked through a view port. Dead Stormtroopers and those strange people with red energy blades were floating around in the vacuum of slip space.

Somewhere, in the far reaches of space, the Final Frontier. The USS Enterprise-F lies in the shipyards, the last of the Sovereign-IV Class Dreadnoughts. The worker-bees flying around it were doing the last of the welding. Her shields flickered on, the worker-been already finished with the welding. The Enterprise propelled itself out of the shipyards. Fifteen million Humans, Klingons, and those of the other races watching, though it was supposed to be a moment of elation. No one cheered, their faces grim. The Borg had almost assimilated the entire galaxy, and they were nearing the last isolated pocket of resistance. The fleet, the galaxy's last hope set sail, to discover and colonize new worlds in other galaxies. Little did they know that they were about to be launched into another conflict, one spanning entire galaxies. One that the fleet would make little significant impact on.

Captain Joann Lucy Picard, one of the members of Captain Jean Luc Picard's lineage, sat on the command seat. They in hyperspace, the starlines streaking impossibly fast across the display. The new hyperdrives were designed to be able to cross the space between galaxies. They were experimental though. They placed themselves in Cryo-stasis tubes, so did the crew and the rest of the fleet. Awaiting the moment they would leave hyperspace.

Joann saw a vaguely familiar place, the playground in her school when she was five. The children were running about, chasing each other. A kid tugged the hem of her skirt, the child had a cut on his knee and he was crying, tears were flowing freely from his eyes. He asked for a band-aid. Joann reached into her pocket and took out a healing pad. As she was about to hand it to the child, the children began chanting

"We are the Borg, prepare to be assimilated. Resistance is futile!"

The boy's skin turned ash gray, Borg implants began to appear. The Borg-child raised an injector and jabbed it into her thigh, her skin turned ash gray. And she too became one of those they were desperately trying to escape.

Joann woke with a start, the Cryo-tube was still closed. The glass door slid open, letting the gases escape with a _hiss_, she stepped out. Her legs shaky, she stretched a few times, hearing the _pop_ of her joints. Satisfied, she stepped onto a turbo lift. She arrived at the bridge, she sat down and said

"Sensors, tell us where we are. How many ships have made it through?"

"Ma'am, we are in uncharted space, there seems to be a sort of star base nearby, also with some shipyards. The star patterns don't match with any of ours, that and three fourths of the fleet made it."

"Good." said Joann

"Ma'am, I'm picking up ships moving toward us. They are powering up weapons!"

"Shit!"

The ship shook, outside some of the ships were arranging themselves in a sphere formation, the colony ships inside the shell. Several of the unknown single craft were firing a variety of projectiles and missiles at them. Three ships, with an array of three triangular radiator fins on the port and starboard sides fired ion beams. The beams did little damage, but under prolonged fire, the shields were brought down. Phasers were lancing through space, attempting to catch the enemy single craft. Several of the missile-armed ones exploded into balls of flame, having been speared on the phasers the Federation used.

Joann's sensor officer, Spark looked at his display. He was picking up a huge hyperspace signature.

"Ma'am, I've got a large hyperspace signature coming in. It's moving at hyper luminal speeds, faster than what we could manage." he said, his eyes widening in the process.

He also picked up a hyperspace anomaly forming under the battle.

"Ma'am, I also have a hyperspace anomaly forming directly under us!"

A whirlpool formed, glowing blue because of the Cerenkov Radiation with streaks of white across it. And like a phoenix rising from the ashes, a huge, angular warship rose from the whirlpool. It slowed down and righted itself. Her silver, royal purple and yellow orchre markings glistening in the light.

"Ma'am! I'm detecting massive energy spikes from the ship. Let's see, the hottest energy spike is around the center of the ship. Around the equivalent of- oh my..." he trailed off, his eyes large like saucers "twelve black holes."

"Twelve black holes!" Joann screamed, standing up. She took a look at the size of the vessel. Around twenty kilometers long. Larger than even the largest Borg warship. Her legs felt weak, she sat down and saw her sides, displayed boldly on her flanks was an emblem, it resembled a phoenix rising from the ashes, and the name _Shadow of the Day_. Under that was an identification code: CUS-VNG/H/A-7777 Classification: Vanguard (Super-Dreadnought) , hull type: Akira Class

Joann saw the hostiles face the newcomer. Three carriers and several Cruiser size vessels escorting them. They were launching single craft at an alarming rate, while the _Shadow of the Day_ was sitting there, also launching ships ranging from single craft, to corvettes and frigates. The enemies drew nearer, the odd language being broadcast on unencrypted channels. They opened fire, and milliseconds later, three massive, pure white beams lanced from the _Shadow of the Day_, destroying almost three quarters of the enemy fleet in seconds. The stragglers having sizable chunks torn out of them by the more conventional weaponry they _Shadow of the Day _used. Three of the enemy single craft being drawn in by tractor beams.

The entire fleet was stunned by the show of destruction the _Shadow of the Day_ put on. Their sensor officers reported after regaining their composures. Joann's said

"Those beams are antimatter encased in a proton field, apparently to focus the beam into well, a beam. Those more conventional weapons are particle weapons. Against both, shields, even Borg shields would not stand up, the particle weapons could take theirs out in five hits, while the antimatter beams could take them down almost instantly." he added "Their armor is very resilient against almost anything. And that ship's covered in a hundred meters of that armor."

"Shit!" Joann cursed.

"Sir! We have misjumped! The massive energies unleashed during the escape has caused our jump drives to malfunction." Kazimir's NAVCOM officer said

"Sir! I am detecting a Turanic Raider fleet engaging an unknown fleet. They appear to be of mixed races. They also seem to be technologically advanced." he said "My suggestion is to engage the Turanic Raiders first, then make contact."

Kazimir took his advice and opened fire. Most of the fleet was destroyed, stragglers were picked off by their particle cannons and the three remaining strike craft were captured. He told his COM AI to hail the unknowns, their sleek white ships floating, perhaps a hundred kilometers above them.

"Ma'am! The alien ship is hailing us!"

"Put it on screen." Joann said.

A human looking creature replaced the screen. If they had the same gender system humans had, then it was male. The only differences were the double-irises, the inner iris was yellow and the outer iris was blue, his hair was black only streaked with purple. Behind him were various aliens, some were reptilian humanoids, others were the same species as the man who was on screen and there were also strange floating robots, they looked like segmented arrowheads and had a single glowing eye, there were also sections of those robots floating in mid-air. But most surprising of all, there were also humans. The man said in a baritone

"Hello human. Don't worry, we won't blow you away like we did with those bastards over there. That is unless you fire upon us." he added "By the way, I am Kazimir McDougal, High Admiral (Which is the equivalent of an Admiral of the Fleet or a Grand Admiral) and President of the Confederacy of United Suns."

Joann was shocked stiff, he knew English and was an Admiral and a President at the same time. And knowing that he was not a rogue, there were more ships with capabilities like those. She recovered quickly and said

"Greetings alien! I am Joann Lucy Picard, captain of this ship, this fleet is the last hope of the survival of the races in my galaxy."

Kazimir nodded knowingly. A hologram appeared beside him, it had the form of a human clad in the same uniform the female humans were wearing. It said

"They're right Kaz. They are the last of their races, we must help them!"

Kazimir then said to Joann "Okay, we have misjumped, and we have to- what the hell is _that_!"

Behind the fleet came a giant cube, it was green and glowed in some parts. Kazimir sent her a video feed of the object, it appeared in a corner.

"That is a Borg Cube! Don't let it's transporters past your shields."

A robotic voice said over their channel "We are the Borg! Lower your shields and power down your weapons, prepare to be assimilated. Resistance is futile!"

Kazimir said "Go to hell bastard! We won't join you."

Glowing plates of energy leapt up around the _Shadow of the Day_. Thousands of missiles exited their launch tubes, particle bolts streaked through space to impact on the Borg's shields. The missiles impacted first, some of them being shot down by the point defense Phasers, then the particle bolts, dealing heavy damage to their shields. Phasers lanced through space to hit the Confederate's shields, barely even making them flare. Quantum and Proton torpedoes were shot down, nothing could get through their Point Defense grid. Particle bolts were blowing sizable holes in the Borg Cube, the Cube locked tractor beams onto the _Shadow of the Day_ and tried to pull her closer, but she would not move even an inch. She was firing her less powerful beam weapons, they lanced through space, being bright enough to leave a temporary after-image. Kazimir stumbled when a lucky quantum torpedo hit the area near the bridge. He fell onto the command console and accidentally pushed a data crystal chip into a slot in the audio board, the chip contained his personal music library, which ranged from 20th to 22nd century Rock, Alternative rock and SiD Metal, some Punk Rock and Rap Rock included plus all of Martin O Donnell's albums. The song "Blow Me Away" began playing.

_They fall in line_

_One at a time,_

_Ready to play._

_(I can't see them anyway)_

_No time to lose_

_We've got to move_

_Steady your helm_

_(I can't see them anyway)_

Kazimir got up and reset the course, the ship had begun turning to face the cube head on. He checked the sensor suite and saw that the cube was gone. A faint shimmer turned into the cube.

"Fire your guns!" he said to his weapons officers.

"It's time to run." Joann said to the fleet.

_Fire your guns_

_It's time to run_

_Blow me away_

_(I will stay, in the mess I made)_

More quantum torpedoes were slipping through. A lucky one made the entire bridge crew stumble and fall.

_After the fall_

_We'll shake it off_

_Show me the way_

_Only the strongest will survive_

_Lead me to heaven, when we die_

_I am the shadow on the wall_

_I'll be the one to save us all_

An antimatter beam sliced the cube in half, leaving both halves to float away from each other. Then they exploded.

_There's nothing left_

_So save your breath_

_Lying in wait_

_(Caught inside this tidal wave)_

The bridge was filled with tension, they were still alert. A high powered sensor scan picked up three more cubes moving in. Kazimir ordered the beam cannons to fire. Two antimatter beams streaked through space, it appeared as if it was a mis-fire, but two cubes materialized and exploded.

"Your cover's blown. No where to go, holding your fate." Kazimir sang along to the song. Behind him sang "Loaded I will walk alone."

The lone Borg Cube materialized, but it seemed to have more armor and better weapons, it was slightly larger too. Kazimir dubbed it a 'Tactical Cube'.

_Fire your guns_

_It's time to run_

_Blow me away_

_(I will stay, in the mess I made)_

_After the fall_

_We'll shake it off_

_Show me the way_

_Only the strongest will survive_

_Lead me to heaven, when we die_

_I am the shadow on the wall_

_I'll be the one to save us all_

Kazimir engaged the _Shadow of the Day_'s Auxiliary thrusters, allowing her to move and turn faster than a Destroyer Class Vessel. The _Shadow of the Day _barrel rolled while simultaneously moving 'down'. The barrel roll allowed the _Shadow of the Day _to fire all available weapons at the Tactical Cube. Fireballs blossomed across the Cube's surface, dissipating to reveal large holes in its armor.

_Wanted it back_

_(Don't fight me now)_

_Here it comes_

_Die!_

The _Shadow of the Day _unleashed another alpha-strike. More holes were torn into the Cube's armor. The cube moved closer in an attempt to ram the _Shadow of the Day_, and was hit by a graviton wave, armor peeled off in chunks, then was vaporized by the forces.

_Only the strongest will survive_

_Lead me to heaven, when we die_

_I am the shadow on the wall_

_I'll be the one to save us all_

"Save us all!" Kazimir sang.

Joann was shocked, both by the ferocity of the Shadow of the Day's attacks, and that Kazimir liked this kind of music.

"Since you seem to be the refugees, you'll have to come with us, we could find you a place in the other galaxies, and we will upgrade your ship's components." Kazimir said "Here are the coordinates of our gathering. I suggest that my ship will form a slip space bubble around your fleet though, to prevent your hyper drives from malfunctioning, again."

Joan nodded in agreement, the _Shadow of the Day_ moved closer, then into the fleet, the fleet arranged itself in a sphere formation and allowed the slip space bubble to form around it.

"Sergeant Zyberiak, please report to the Bridge, High Admiral Kazimir wants to talk to you." A female voice said. Zyberiak walked into a secondary corridor, he saw an RT System Platform, he walked onto it and pressed the "Summon Transport" button, he waited three seconds and the transport slowed to a halt, he embarked and pressed the button that set the destination to the Bridge. The doors closed and Zyberiak sat down, the transport passed the recreation area's garden. Many crew members were tending to the plants and planting more, the plants and trees were taller than normal because of the point eight gees the Confederates kept on their ships. The crew loved it because it was one of the few places they could grow and cultivate life in the midst of this bloodshed. The transport stopped, Zyberiak disembarked and entered the bridge, he saw Kazimir. And he looked angry.

* * *

Author's Note: The Next Chapter will explain the origins of the CUS, as established in chapter 2, the CUS are the descendants of the Forerunners, so I'll elaborate.


	4. Intermission

The Mothership fell out of the slip space bubble; the bubble was beginning to collapse, allowing the rest of the ships to enter real space. Though they were supposed to converse in person, there was no facility large enough to allow the ships to dock. So they had to improvise. The _Shadow of the Day _emerged from another slip space bubble, along with several ships of varying shapes and sizes. The combined fleets whistled collectively, the sleek white ships were beautiful, with exception of the _Shadow of the Day_.

Kazimir came over the line "I misjumped, and along the way. I found these guys" he said while gesturing to the newcomers "That and we need to build another station to fit us all, and another shipyard along the way." He added.

Meanwhile, the UNSC and New-Covenant were facing a new threat. The New Communist Movement (NCM), a NCM Frigate dropped into real space, carrying valuable data on the UNSC's plans. The NCM Frigate entered a geo-synchronous orbit around Threshold. They were building a station out of Halo's remains; it looked like a smaller version of High Charity crossed with an Orbital MAC platform. The station itself carried the name of _"Halberdier"_.

The New-Covenant Assault Carrier, the _Shadow of Intent_ loomed in Low Orbit above Earth. The glassed areas of Africa sparkling in the light of the rising sun. The Arbiter was conversing with Fleet Admiral Lord Terrance Hood beside the Memorial

"Arbiter, welcome to see you here." He greeted

"Likewise human." The Arbiter replied

"We have more pressing matters to discuss though, after the colony ship was launched. We lost track of it, it seemed to have vanished!" he added "We have to find it. The alliance might crumble if we don't."

The Arbiter nodded in agreement. Their species might think that each turned on each other. And the repercussions would be extreme. The very thought of another war sent chills along Arbiter's spine.

The New Republic fringe colony, Kaserra was under attack by the New Empire. Fifteen Star Destroyers decelerated out of hyperspace. The Republicans were caught in surprise; most of the Republic starships had not raised their shields in time and had suffered medium damage. The Imperials fired another salvo and were met in return by a salvo from the Republicans. Three flights of ten X-Wings launched from the fighter bays, along with ten flights of five B-Wings and A-Wings. All hell had broken loose when the single craft met with the TIEs, the swarms of TIE Fighters were overwhelming the point defense of the Republic ships, while the more maneuverable X-Wings were taking them down here and there. An A-Wing destroyed both domes and launched a full salvo of proton torpedoes at the Star Destroyer. The pilot dove away and watched the Star Destroyer explode. One of the Mon Calamari Star Cruisers was having her armor plating being torn away by New Empire turbolaser bolts, although it was still operational, most of her own turbolaser turrets were either melted or missing. A turbolaser bolt blew away the conning tower, the piece drifting off. A couple of Proton Torpedoes blew away the port and starboard engines, leaving her drifting. She wretched one more time to a turbolaser bolt and exploded, sending pieces of armor and hull into the shields of the rest of the Republic ships, a Nebulon-B Class Frigate took several turbolaser bolts to the walkway connecting the two halves, the walkway along with her spine shattered, leaving both halves to drift, the Imperials were also faring the same, but for every Star Destroyer destroyed, two more seemed to replace it. More Star Destroyers were arriving by the minute.

"Thank God that our carriers and we carry construction facilities!" Kazimir said "We just need to find some material for shipbuilding; unfortunately," he gestured to the asteroids "these are insufficient."

A scout probe returned and relayed the data it had gathered. There was a large deposit of what the Confederates used for armor and superstructures nearby. They called it "Diathlum-Tetratitanium" it was super hard and super dense. It was a naturally occurring diamond lattice with _pure_ titanium in between the spaces. It could also be reinforced by adding an artificial quartz-diamond coating, and another process hardened both into a hyper strong alloy called "Hubnesterium", named after the hero Hubnester. (Machinae Supremacy fans should get this.)

"Yes! We've found it!" Kazimir screamed in triumph, right in front of the leaders of all the fleets.

"He seems a bit childish." Joann commented. The others nodded in agreement.

Kazimir rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment.

"Yes. I am childish, but when things get serious, I get serious." He replied. He clapped his hands together and said "Well. I think it's time to build the station and the Fleetyard."

As soon as he said that, several construction ships flew from the larger launch bays on the carriers, three Confederate mining vessels began mining the deposit, the construction ships formed a framework for a Resource Controller Class Vessel near them, the mining ships docked with the construction ships, and soon a gleaming silver plate of metal emerged from a slot in the hull of one, the same thing was being reiterated with the other construction vessels. Eight robotic drones flew out of holes in the construction ships and held onto the panel with magnetic grapples, they flew to the frame and secured it there while two of the drones began welding it to the frame. Soon enough, the bottom half was finished, so where the inner components, the reactors, the engines, the conduits and the decks were lowered into the ship, then the top was welded on. Three shuttles carrying ten space-suited engineers and workers each flew from the _Shadow of the Day_'s secondary launch bay and docked with the still unfinished ship and covered portholes with diamond plate, added wiring and electronics and pumped air into the ship, lighting fixtures were placed and more adjustments were made. The entire process taking exactly three days to finish, this process wasn't too long though. Three more Resource Controllers were built, with eight mining vessels as companions; fifteen more construction ships were built. All of the vessels were fully crewed, each side contributing volunteers.

Joann Lucy Picard along with her bridge crew was roaming the halls of the _Shadow of the Day_ as part of an invitation by Kazimir; he wanted each faction to be familiarized with the ships of the other factions both inside and out. She gazed around in awe, the ceilings were high to accommodate the trams, and the walls were decorated with intricate geometric designs, there was also the occasional holoscreen and painting on the walls. She also met a few Marines and a Captain from the UNSC; there were also a couple of tall, scaly aliens with four mandibles for mouths.

Private Timothy de Mesa of the UNSC Marine Corps was sitting at a bench in the mess hall of the _Shadow of the Day_, he was sitting with a few of his friends, three of them Elites, Voka 'Maireramee spoke

"Hey! Timothy. Remember the time you pushed a Brute off a cliff while screaming "THIS IS SPARTAAAA!"?" he imitated his voice. The other marines laughed out loud "Yeah! And we pissed him off by calling him 'Leonidas' for a week!" a marine said.

"So do any of you guys have a girl back home?" a marine asked, he had recently been welcomed by the squad a few days ago.

"Yeah." Most of the marines said, "No." one of them said, a hint of sadness in his voice "She got killed in the war, but those apes didn't just kill her, they used her for…" he trailed off.

"Don't worry, those Brutes will be gone in a flash. Especially with these new allies." Another marine reassured him.

"Hot damn! This is the best tasting food I've ever eaten in a mess hall!" their Sergeant remarked.

A Confederate marine asked them "Do you mind if I sit with you. The other tables seem to be full."

"Sure miss!" The Sergeant answered "Assholes! Make some space for the lady will you" he shouted.

Timothy found himself staring at her; she was tall, around 6 feet 5 inches tall, and like most of the Confederates he had met, she had two irises, the inner one was silver and the outer one was a bright green. And combine that with her shoulder length gold-copper hair, slim profile and graceful curves made her just beautiful. And the real shocker was that she was not yet taken and she was a Sergeant Major!

"Ma'am! Sergeant Major Laureleii how's your day?" a passing Confederate marine asked.

"I'm fine thank you. How about yours?" she replied

"It's gone along great, except when Zy was called to the bridge." He said "Woo boy! Kaz looked pissed!"

"Yeah! He looked angrier than a swarm of pissed yellow jackets!"

A curious marine asked "Who's that?"

"That's my brother." She said

"Ah." Came the reply

"So what's your name?" asked Timothy

"Laureleii McWandermore" she said "Yours?"

"Timothy De Mesa, UNSC Marines." He extended a hand, and to his surprise, the woman shook it.

"Nice to meet you!" she said "Hope you're not one of those green minded pricks that are common in the Marines."

A "Hey!" came from the other end of the table.

The rest of the table laughed out loud.

Corporal Jack Morrison of the UNSC Marines stepped into the firing range; a cacophony of noises filled his ears. Confederate Marines were clad in armor, firing various energy and projectile weapons. One dual-wielded two SMGs, they looked like M7s crossed with an Uzi and a MP5. The marine fired at a target, it was a holographic representation of a Brute Chieftain, the hologram was solid, and was programmed to act like the real thing. The hologram raised a holographic Gravity Hammer, the Marine fired full-auto, the SMGs let out a throaty roar, and sixty brass shell casings fell out of the ejection ports. The rounds took the Brute's shields down easily, the rest hit the thick hide and tore it apart, and the holographic brute was ripped apart, real bullets moving through simulated armor, flesh and bone. The marine set the smoking SMGs down and hefted another weapon, the MA79H; it looked like an oversized MA5B, only with an attached grenade launcher and retractable bayonet. The magazine was placed on the right side of the gun. It looked like it accepted 10.2 Caliber rounds, there were also varying magazine sizes, ranging from what looked like ten bullets to a hundred, the larger magazines were in cylinder form. The hologram switched forms. This time a Sentinel Enforcer, the gun let out a roar that could rival that of the Warthog's LAAG. Morrison looked at the magazine, it had an explosion symbol. And judging by that, the bullets in it were high explosive. Small explosions blossomed on the simulated Enforcer's shields, the shields flared and disappeared, and the rounds continued on and blew chunks of the Enforcer away, after two reloads. It was brought down. The marine left and Jack occupied the booth, he grabbed the SMG, lifted it, he took a magazine from the wall, he was having a hard time lifting it, slammed it home and fired. The recoil was immense, since he was holding it up with two hands, both of his wrists and forearms broke under the strain. He let out a long and very colorful line of expletives and dropped the weapon. A nearby Confederate helped him up and led him to the med-bay. He said

"That was an M49K Submachine gun. It carries sixty 50 Cal. Rounds, it's generally considered a bad idea to fire it without augmentations, or a powered exoskeleton." He said "C'mon, let me get you to the med-bay, they'll fix that up in a flash." Jack looked at him dubiously "Literally." The marine added.

Private Kaelis McNeverlust of the CUS Marine Corps was firing one of the new MA79H Heavy Assault Rifles when he heard a long line of curse words. _Shit!_ He thought. He looked to the left and saw a UNSC Marine on the floor; he looked injured and judging by the smoking M49K in his hands, he knew what had happened. He helped him up and led him to the med-bay. They passed a viewport, and saw that the frame of the new station that was being built. The Construction Vessels lowering various components into the station, the massive main conduit, weapons, sensor arrays, and a construction/repair matrix. From what Kazimir had said, she would be large enough to have their fleet dock, and still have room for three more. The station would be shaped like a bicycle wheel with two spikes coming out of the central bulge; those spikes were for docking ships.

An Elite Major and veteran of the Battle of the Ark passed the armory onboard the _Shadow of the Day_, he saw a glowing glyph situated beside the door. A memory surfaced and was 'replayed' in his vision.

_Minor Vare 'Kesamee held his carbine close, he was charged with locating and helping to disable the shields of the Ark's control room, three Jiralhinae were in a room, arguing over what to do with the corpse of a human marine_

"_Let's eat it!" a brute said "I heard from the Kig-Yar that human tastes good."_

"_You idiot! Katar, there is not much meat in these humans. And the fats will make you overweight."_

"_Let's just feed it to the Kig-Yar."_

"_Why? Not manly enough to eat a corpse?" Katar said_

_Vare got tired of listening to this useless banter and primed a plasma grenade. The grenade sailed through the air and stuck on the Chieftain's thick furry hide. Katar pulled it off, taking a large amount of fur and consequently getting it stuck to his hand. The grenade detonated, taking the Chieftain and Katar with it. The remaining Jiralhinae survived and suffered only a slightly burnt coat. Vare stepped into the doorway and fired three rounds into its thick skull. Blood and brain matter spattering onto the wall behind it. A glowing glyph flared to life, a laser beam came from the center of the symbol and etched the same glyph onto his armor._

Vare's vision snapped back to normal. He stared at the glyph in shock; either it was one of the most shocking coincidences or that they _are_ the Forerunners! Around the ship, many Halo War Veterans were also having similar flashbacks. Kazimir showed Stone, S'jet and the Sangheili Fleet Master the designs for the station and the Fleetyard, both pairs of eyes widened in shock and surprise. The designs were the same as the designs on the Halo Rings.

"We need to talk. Now!" said Stone, while simultaneously grabbing him by the arm, the Sangheili Fleet Master grabbed his other arm.

"What the? Where in Hell are you taking me?" Kazimir said in surprise.

Stone and the Fleet Master dragged him into a Maintenance Closet.

"So lemme get this straight. You Confederates are the Forerunners?" Stone asked.

Kazimir nodded "Actually, we were just a House in the vast Forerunner Empire."

The Fleet Master bowed down "Have mercy on us. We have slaughtered the humans under the belief that they were defiling the relics." He said

Kazimir said "So that's why the relay stations of Harvest went offline. And why exactly did you kill the inheritors of the Mantle?"

The Fleet Master stayed silent. His head bowed down in shame.

Stone said "What the hell is this Mantle?"

"The Mantle is the duty to protect the Universe; it was handed down to us by the Precursors." Kazimir said "I guess we'll have to announce it." He added

The other two nodded, The trio exited the closet.

"The Greatest Journey is at hand!" the Prophet of Freedom "We will follow the footsteps of our Gods by conquering the Galaxy!"

The gathered crowd roared in agreement. They had found new allies, the savage and warlike Pfhor. The Pfhor had enslaved many other cultures and races.

"Now we will test our new technology, we shall use it to enslave the Galaxy!" the Prophet announced.

Two UNSC Marines were bought into the center of the room, their hands and feet bound by energy shackles. A Brute brought them to a device, a sleek ovoid device was brought to the back of their heads, right above the CNI Port, and it injected something into their brains. They convulsed for five seconds and stopped. The Brute let them down and the marines bowed down to the Prophet.

Hiigarian Battle Group 04 was exploring the outer regions of their Galaxy; they picked up a distress signal which had led them there

"Sir! We pick up an object on our sensors; it appears to be a distress beacon. And there appears to be a sort of growth on the object." The Sensors Officer said.

"Well then, let's pick it up and see what it is." The Captain of the carrier _Ka'puso_ said.

Three salvage corvettes were launched and locked onto the beacon and found a probe, they towed it back to the Carrier.

"Hmm, there appears to be a strange growth on the probe." A scientist said, taking a sample and placing it inside a test tube for later testing. Suddenly, the biomatter began to spread! It began covering the walls and the scientists, they screamed in pain.

"I'm picking up a power fluctuation in Research Bay Zero Seven Alpha. It's spreading outward, now it's affecting the drives and engines." The Engineering Team leader reported.

A bloodcurdling scream came over the comm "It's taking over the ship. By the sands! It's – it's. Oh my!" the message was cut off by another scream, then static,

"Sir! The power fluctuations are spreading all across the ship!" Engineering said.

"Sir! Something's taking control of the ship's systems!" Another officer said.


	5. The Second Cataclysm War, Part One

Jedi Master Luke Skywalker drew and activated his lightsaber in one fluid motion; the _hiss snap_ of the blade coming to life was drowned out by explosions and blasters firing. He swung at a Stormtrooper, cutting his torso cleanly in half, then stabbed another and slashed at an incoming rocket; it fell out of the sky in two pieces. He brought his lightsaber up to deflect incoming blaster bolts, most of them 'returned to sender'. An explosion flared up behind him, showering him with dirt, blood, shards of armor and bone, and chunks of meat. Above him, a Star Destroyer fell out of orbit, her drive controls severed by a lucky turbolaser bolt. The ship glowing red hot and trailing smoke and flame, she struck a mountainside and skidded off, she bounced once, then twice and finally stopped, her prow held up only by the superstructure. Many of her armor plates were missing, either embedded in the ground, burnt up in the atmosphere, or shattered by the multiple impacts, everything went silent of a second, and then a sonic boom reached their ears, the shockwave sending many to the ground. Disoriented, the soldiers stood up slowly. The back half of a Nebulon-B disintegrated in the atmosphere, pieces of which falling within the Imperial lines, the front half being mostly intact, plowed headfirst into the back of the Command Tower of the downed Star Destroyer, their structures interlocked, then the momentum tore it off before finally crashing to a rest on top of the downed ship. The sphere of a Recusant Class Destroyer fell off its mount, having been sheared off by a Proton Torpedo, the now out of control ring section plowed into a Mon Calamari Star Cruiser, both interlocked and vanished in a ball of flame. Luke was tearing through the enemy lines like wildfire through dry grass. They were fighting again over Endor.

"We are the Forerunners!" Kazimir said "before the Halo Array was activated, we left in transport ships to the Andromeda, and we left observation and tracking stations on several planets to monitor your development." He said, gesturing to the humans and Sangheili "Now these species: the San Shyuum, the Kig-Yar, the Jiralhinae, the Unggoy and the Mgalekgolo, may have evolved on their own during our Ancestor's absence."

The Elites hung their heads low; they had killed their own brothers for decades under the lies of the Prophets.

"These Houses composed of the Forerunner Empire, House Karagatran, which is now the SIUS, House Langhit, which is now the Imperium Van Lied, House Lupra, which is now the Tol 'Vaharaan Technocracy, unfortunately, they had fallen into self worship, they were also the founders of the Forerunner Empire, the MRA and Her Allies are at war with them, including us. And House Mundeo, which of course, is the Confederacy of United Suns. We also built and researched the technologies behind the Halo Array, the Shield Worlds and the Ark. We also seeded Earth, and built a few planets here and there."

Everyone had their mouths agape, in the back, a fly entered someone's throat. He promptly began choking on it. He fell off his chair and had to be dragged out of the room.

"We had also adopted Christianity as a religion, from a battered ship. The _Spirit of Faith_ I think. There were humans on board, who refused to tell the location of their Homeworld, apparently, they were at war with another faction.

Thankfully, Christianity prevented us from falling into self worship, like House Lupra did." Kazimir announced.

"Anyhow, meeting adjourned." He said cheerfully, everyone stood up and stayed silent, letting Kazimir's words sink it. They exited and immediately headed for the bunks.

"Well that could have gone worse!" Kazimir said to himself.

Sub-Admiral Sunder Depth was sitting in his cell. There was a faucet, a bed, which was quite soft by the way and a holoscreen. Apparently it was for news programs. The entrance had neither bars nor any force fields. But it was a completely transparent static energy field, it was held in place by unknown means. Depth's clothes and skin were slightly charred, he had tried to escape by running out of the cell, but he had a shocking revelation upon hitting the field, it electrocuted you depending on the amount of force put on it.

"So if you touched it, you would only feel a slight shock, but if you ran at full tilt and put all of your weight on it, you would end up more than just shocked." The guard said, ending his lecture, but it was after he tried escaping.

(Puns intended)

His ship had been captured, now it was floating outside. Having her armor stripped off only to be re-plated, rearmed and redesigned. Her previously bone gray hull was now gleaming silver, royal purple and yellow ochre, her tower had been shortened and her launch bay was now situated at the side of the ship. An Admiral of the Fleet was there, inspecting their armor and uniforms, randomly asking the prisoners questions. The door slid open with a _hiss_ and another man in uniform stepped in. The Fleet Admiral saluted, Depth was shocked, only a Fleet Admiral would salute to the leader of a nation, and the newcomer seemed to be that, but his uniform was decorated with medals and ribbons. Possibly indicating a higher rank, Depth noted his name tag it read "McDougal, Kazimir" under that was "High-Admiral, President".

The _Hand of the Colossi _was enjoying her new life as the _Lady of Hope_, a small contingent of Corvettes and Frigates formed a delta wall in front of her, the apex of her bow was now missing, now she had two prongs, her armor been replaced by Hubnesterium plates, her turbolaser batteries by particle cannons and beam projectors, her engines replaced by bigger ones with a larger thrust output, her reactor replaced by an Class IV Antimatter Reactor. She jumped out along with the scout fleet.

The New Republic fleet was not doing well, their hundred strong fleet reduced to a ten strong combat capable scrap yard. Another Mon Calamari Star Cruiser fell to a barrage of turbolaser bolts. A Corellian Frigate's lower port engines were being torn off by the accurate strafing runs of the Imperial TIE Interceptor pilots, the ship lost control, veered to port and slammed into the front section of a Nebulon-B, the walkway bending because of the stress. The Imperials were also suffering heavy casualties, a hundred and twenty reduced to twelve.

"Several hyperspace signatures detected! One seems to be a new class of Super Star Destroyer! It's surrounded by unknowns." A Sensors Officer announced from his station.

Twenty whirlpools of energy, glowing blue because of Cerenkov radiation, followed by twenty flashes of light. Twenty majestic ships replaced the whirlpools, among them seemed to be a redesigned Super Star Destroyer. The new fleet turned to face the Imperials, and opened fire. Ten Particle Lances streamed from the cannons in between the prongs of the Confederacy's ships. The Particle Lances tore through Star Destroyers, melting through nearest to the point of impact, leaving black scars farther out and simply crumpling armor even farther out.

Commander Allison Moss gasped as the strange beams the newcomers used tore through the Imperial Star Destroyers like wildfire. The smaller ships moved in, on their flanks were various identification codes, mostly beginning with FFG, some with DD and the Super Star Destroyer had an identification code beginning with CV/X. She knew what those meant; their Frigates dwarfed the enemy's Star Destroyers, and their Destroyers dwarfing those. The Imperials lashed out at the new ships, but their Turbolaser bolts were blocked by their shields, or were intercepted by their Point Defense, TIEs moved in, and were reduced to burning husks by particle bolts.

"Ma'am, the Imperials are retreating! But there seems to be a gravity well forming around the newcomers! They're preventing them from getting reinforcements."

"Okay! Move our ships closer and open fire with all turbolaser batteries!" Allison said.

The ship rumbled as her drives came on-line, and then she shook as her turbolaser batteries fired. Another Star Destroyer exploded into a ball of flame, scattering fragments into the space around it. The newcomers did not even bother to take out the sensor/shield globes; they just fired at their shields, and were doing a great job at collapsing them. The strange red bolts tearing huge chunks off the Star Destroyer's hulls, the last of the Star Destroyers was turned into a floating scrap heap.

The Hiigarian Carrier Battle Group had been completely taken over by the Beast, they activated their jump drives. Rectangular waveforms washed over their ships, their target: Tanis Base.

"Ma'am, I'm picking up jump signatures, they match those of Hiigarian Hyper drives!" Joann's sensor officer announced. "They're coming in right in front of us."

"Prepare to greet them. They may not know about the new alliance, so be prepared to beam data to them." Joann ordered.

Several quantum waveforms appeared, the ships exited and the waveforms dissipated. Joann felt a lump forming in her gut. Something was not right.

"Ma'am, I see no life signatures on those ships!" the sensor officer said "They're powering up weapons!"

"Shit!" Joann cursed "Go to red alert! Everyone to your battle stations!"

The lights dimmed and became red. Alerts rang all over the ship, transporter pads were prepared. Marines ran, grabbed weapons and put on their armor. Their weapons had been significantly upgraded by the Confederates, their ships' shields and armor were also redone. Allowing the shields to reactivate almost instantly after being brought down. Their weapons were also redesigned for larger range, higher beam cohesion and more damage. Plus they were also able to charge within a second.

Joann saw why she felt something was out of place. There was biomatter covering certain areas of the ships, the sight of which almost made her puke.

"Sir, the Feds are under attack!" Kazimir's NAVCOM Officer reported.

"Then we'll help them!" Kazimir said "All escorts, go to Alert Omega! I repeat go to Alert Omega! Our allies are under attack, prepare to move in. They seem to be outnumbered."

The _Shadow of the Day_ and her escorts, the _Path of Light_, _In Times of Darkness _and the_ Necessary Evil_ jumped into the fray.

"Within three days time, we will attack the Hiigarians with our mighty navy! We will send them back to where they belong, the barren lifeless rock they call "Kharak"." The Taiidan Emperor announced, millions of men and women who had enlisted in the Taiidan Imperial Space Forces cheered. But they did not know what was to come, they would defile the relics and people of a mighty Nation. Fight loosing battles against a mighty alliance formed from bitter enemies. Go against all odds against not one, but three all-consuming plagues. But they will also gain allies in their fight against righteousness, the zealous but misguided Covenant, the self worshiping Technocracy, the mighty Empire, the evil Sith and traitors from each faction of the greatest alliance the universe has ever seen.

"We'll beat those dogs back into the hole from which they came!" said an Taiidani Officer, raising a bottle of beer up high, his comrades cheered and knocked their bottles and glasses together. The same thing was happening in bars, pubs and mess halls all across the Taiidan Empire.

The _Dreadnought_, the Taiidan Empire's flagship is finally complete. She is armed with the latest in weapons and armor technology.

"She has pulse lasers, assault cannons, ion beams, plasma launchers, missile batteries, anything you could think of" the Taiidani Fleet Admiral said when asked by a reporter.

"This is Fleet Command, beginning systems check. Drives on-line and one hundred percent functional. Cryogenic Bays A through F on-line, H through N on-line. Weapons fully functional and at peak capacity, hyperdrives operational and fully charged. Sensors on-line and at maximum resolution." Fleet Command added "_Dreadnought_ to _Scaffold._ Begin alignment procedure."

"Aye, Fleet Command."

The _Scaffold _groaned and creaked, struggling to rotate the _Dreadnought._ Slowly but surely, the _Scaffold _began to rotate along with the _Dreadnought._ Both slowed to a halt.

"_Dreadnought _to _Scaffold. _Break the seals, loosen the clamps. We're ready."

Gears began to turn, hydraulics began to compress and relax. The clamps holding the _Dreadnought _in place loosened their grip, the seals covering the exhaust ports and engines were explosively blown away. The cylindrical, seven kilometer long warship slid out of her cradle. She jumped out and led the first large-scale assault on the Hiigarians, their destination: Tanis Base.

"Our fighters are mopping up the last of their recon picket now!" the _Shadow of the Day_'s OPS officer said.

"So Curtana, where do we stand?" Kazimir said, addressing his second in command and friend.

"On the bridge sir!" she replied, a smirk on her face.

"Seriously."

"Oh. You're no fun at all. With our particle cannons, I'm content with three- make that four kills."

"So how did they-" Kazimir was cut off.

"Find us? Those ships are infested with some bio crap, it must have taken over the databases on those ships."

The last nine of the Beast infected frigates formed into a power wall formation and charged. One of the frigate was speared by nine different beams from different sources. Another was cut in half. One managed to fire a few assault cannon rounds before being diced (literally) by upgraded phasers. Another was reduced to a sponge by the _Shadow of the Day_'s particle cannons. The same was done to another frigate, courtesy of the _In Times of Darkness_. The last of the Beast ships was obliterated, it was speared by particle and antimatter beams, bombarded with particle and ion bolts, seared and melted by plasma and gutted by the Confederate's super-accurate energy bolts. Fragments of the ship were scattered all around the battlefield, and by the Kuun-Laan's request, any fragments larger than a semi were to be completely destroyed. The Confederates, knowing the dangers of the Beast, because a similar plague had once swept through their galaxy, were very happy to oblige.

Laureleii was showing the marines she ate with the weapons in the armory. The small group entered the firing range, a voice called out

"Sergeant on deck!"

The soldiers in the firing range stopped and saluted. She returned the salute and said

"At ease soldiers."

The normal sounds of gunfire returned to the firing range.

"Which one do you guys wanna try first?" Laureleii asked

The marines scrambled for the empty booths, which were right beside each other. One asked Laureleii the names of the weapons, he was holding an MA7H Assault Rifle. Another was about to fire a fully loaded M49K SMG, Laureleii ran over to him and snatched the gun away from him.

"Hey!" he complained.

"Those can break your arm if you're not augmented, or have armor on. They can fire sixty rounds in three seconds, and each magazine has sixty 50 Cal. Bullets. So don't even dare." she warned.

"Their weapons are still warm! And they're changing course, they're moving closer, possibly to attack with broadsides!" one Republic ship's sensor officer reported "Open fire with all guns!"

"Stand the hell down soldier!" his captain said "It may just be one of their first contact procedures."

One of the ships opened fire without orders, and was speared by ten different beams. The shields barely holding up against the strain. It exploded, scattering debris all around the wreck. The entire fleet sighed, the prospect of finding new allies gone.

"Ma'am, they're hailing us." Allison's Communication Officer said

"Put it on screen." Allison ordered.

A man with a goatee appeared on the screen, he seemed to have two irises in each eye, the outer one a stormy gray, the inner one a vibrant blue.

"Don't ever do that again." he warned "But I guess it was a rogue vessel, I'll forgive you. For now."

There seemed to be a measured calmness in his voice, the neutrality shown on his face also showed that she was talking to an experienced diplomat.

"I have a proposal, we'll help you fight against the Empire and you'll help us with their equipment, tactics and other information. Either way, you win." he said

"You- you know the Empire?" she asked.

"Yes, those bastards attacked us, and severely underestimated our strength, around ten thousand Imperial ships versus five hundred of our ships. We won, though I'd attribute that to their packed formation, they could not bring all weapons to bear. But we won with only light casualties, while their fleet had been reduced to a tenth of its size. And for that I thank old Kazimir."

Allison had her mouth agape, she slowly regained her composure

"I accept, I'll tell my superiors about our deal." she said.

"Good, I hope that this will lead to an alliance, as we don't want any more enemies in the intergalactic war that we're fighting."

Allison's mouth fell, so did the mouths of everyone present.

* * *

To Turrasta, I read your PM. And I have taken your advice, the CUS could be sorely defeated by the Empire, so I attributed their (The Empire's) defeat to their tightly packed formation. As said above, they could not fire all of their weapons, and some of the exploding ships took their comrades with them to hell. Also the CUS fires their weapons at only a percentage of their full output, (With exception of the Apocalyptica Class Cruiser, it is a dedicated assault platform, mounting five energy bolt cannons on each flank, and a particle-antimatter (proton containment fields to keep the antimatter in line.) beam weapon that could cut straight through Earth at full power, she also had massive radiator fins, making her look like a manta-ray.), plus every CUS warship ranging from Frigate to Sovereign has one or more spinal/bow mount beam cannons (exceptions are the _Shadow of the Day_ which does not have a spinal mount beam cannon, instead there are three, one on each flank and one on the bow and stern of the ship., the Lord Hood class Vanguards (the one that was destroyed was the first Lord Hood Class Vanguard built), the Napoleon Class Sovereigns, which have three on the bow, and three on the side pods.)


	6. The Second Cataclysm War, Part Two

Kazimir was waiting patiently for his opponent to make his next move. He moved a frigate forward, Kazimir moved a jumpship to compensate. Then his enemy's dreadnought took one of Kazimir's frigates. Kazimir replied by blasting the dreadnought into pieces using an orbital defense platform. The door behind them slid open, bathing the two in sunlight. The holographic pieces flickering and dimming momentarily before going back into full quality. The silhouette in the doorway was female. Kazimir set the lights back to the full sunlight setting, the woman walked in, she was dressed in fatigues. Her name tag read "McDougal, Laina.", Kazimir stood up and backed away slowly, he mouthed to his opponent

"_Stay out of this, she bites!_"

The other player nodded, Laina drew closer and pulled Kazimir's hair.

"Sis, can't we just sit down and talk about this over a nice cup of coffee?"

"Tell me why this happened!" Laina shouted "Tell me why you were making alliances here and there without _my_ consent!"

"Calm down sis!" Kazimir said "It's not like this will be a repeat of the Ultimatum Wars!"

"No! Shut up Kaz!" Laina screamed.

Kazimir began to pull himself free from his sister's grip. She pulled harder, then began plucking his eyelashes out, one by one.

"Ow! Stop that, it burns! It burns!" he ordered "Unhand me woman!"

Laina let go of his hair, and then grabbed him by the eyebrows, she pulled hard.

"Argh! No! Not the eyebrows!" he said, pain creeping into his voice.

Laina pulled his head under her shoulder in such a way that the back of his neck was in her armpit, and brought a fist to his scalp. She began her "Dutch-Rub" treatment. Kazimir struggled and wrestled, his younger sister was far stronger and more skilled though, that made resistance futile.

"Hey! Hey! No, not there, not that." he said, she was going to stick her fingers into his nose and pull very hard.

Laina laughed at his pain, her blue-gold eyes glinting with elation, Kazimir had once called her a 'sadistic bitch', and that was true only when she was mad.

"Security..." Kazimir whimpered as his sister began contorting him into various positions while pulling his nose.

The door burst open again, three startled crew members ran in to help their beloved captain and president. Laina sent Kazimir to the floor with a vicious jab to his solar plexus, then she turned to face the new threats.

& & &

Lieutenant Jacob McArmstrong ran into the room, he and his companions had heard the sounds of a struggle in Recreation Room 0117, War-gaming. As soon as he entered the room, he saw that he was in very deep shit. Kazimir's sister, Laina was attacking Kazimir himself, she was using various contortion techniques on Kazimir, all of which were very painful. But Jacob could not help but admire her, she was the most beautiful woman on the ship, she seemed to be a goddess in Jacob's eyes, and also in everyone else's. She punched Kazimir in the solar plexus, sending him to the floor, gasping for breath.

& & &

Allison's fleet was escorting the Confederate Fleet to Coruscant, down below, on the Planet City's surface, people were screaming and running about.

Some pointing up to the sky shouting various things like "The Empire! It's back!", "We're all going to die!", "They'll kill us all!" among others.

The chaos increased when several hundred visible ion trails began streaming from the launch bays on the ships. At first, people thought that they were Imperial TIEs, but some stopped and said

"Those aren't TIEs, they don't have visible ion trails!"

The trails began streaking down to the planet's surface. The people panicked, they thought that they were being strafed, they ducked for cover when they heard the roar of the engines. Then they looked up, to see multicolored smoke trailing from the fighters. Across the city, camera droids began tracking the fighters, the holographic screens switching to live feeds of the fighters, those fighters had a base of silver, with royal purple and yellow orchre markings, their profiles indicated that they were triangular in shape, while some of them looked like X-Wings, only wider and longer, also more menacing. Soon the crowd stopped and realized that it was an air show, and oohs and aahs of surprise and excitement were spreading amongst the crowds. Above, a whirlpool of energy formed, glowing blue because of Cerenkov radiation, it was huge. At first it was the only unusual phenomena in the rapidly dimming sky of Coruscant, more whirlpools followed seconds later. The people below gasped at the beauty of it.

& & &

An Imperial spy had sabotaged the turret controls, infecting them with a virus that made them target all Confederate ships larger than Cruiser Class, Empress Domina had ordered it. The spy also added a twist on his own, a voice-synth that would broadcast commands to open fire with all weapons.

"_You will infiltrate Coruscant and infect the defense turret controls with this virus." Domina said, handing him a data chip "do all you can to make the Confederacy retaliate! Then when Coruscant is softened, we will attack!"_

The spy looked up and saw the signature blue whirlpool the Confederate jump drives create.

& & &

The crowds gathered down below were momentarily blinded by flashes of light, their vision cleared, a rapidly expanding distortion wave emanated from the fading whirlpools. But what really made the crowd gasp were the massive ships that were surrounded by the fading phenomena, they were angular yet sleek, the ships were silver with yellow orchre and royal purple markings and stripes, interspersed between them were gray ships with hard angles, sleek, almost biological silver and purple ships, angular ships which had various markings, and a fleet with ships that carried only one similarity, their colors, which were white and light blue.

The automated defense turrets opened fire!

& & &

"Sir! We are picking up multiple energy spikes from the defense turrets on the ground, orbital defense platforms and the ships themselves!" the _Shadow of the Day_'s SENCOM Officer stated "We have been lured into a trap!"

The conference display beside the main tactical map flickered to life, the New Covenant Fleet Master's face was displayed, the alien had an obvious scowl on his face. He growled and said

"The treacherous rats have tricked us! They will burn with the might of our fleets!"

"All ships, activate point defense and shields. Set all weapons to the maximum safe rating. We don't want our weapons to be slagged!" Kazimir ordered.

Glowing plates of energy flickered and materialized, silver spheres enveloped the New Covenant ships and disappeared. Sentinel clouds formed up around key Hiigarian warships, faceted, red tinged spheres of energy materialized. The first and second salvo of turbolaser bolts were intercepted by Confederate Point Defense Beams, the rest dissipated on the shields of the various ships. The UNSC opened fire, MAC rounds tore through space and tore the Republic ships to shreds. The New Covenant fired next, blue streams of plasma streaked lazily through space, to splash on the Republic's shields, bringing them down by a fraction and mildly scorching their hulls. The Confederates fired, orange, yellow and red particle bolts hit the shields, making them flare brightly, the lighter ships had large holes cut into them, while the larger ones escaped with little hull damage but shield capacitors burnt out or melted. A Confederate Conestoga Class Frigate floated alongside a Hiigarian Assault Frigate, a UNSC Destroyer, a New Covenant Assault Frigate and a Multi-Beam Frigate from the Kuun-Laan. The frigate drew to a halt, then the formation charged forward, MAC Cannons blazing, plasma burning bright, ion beams crackling, and particle bolts streaking through space. The formation smashed into a similar Republic formation, the small coordinated battle quickly dissolved into an unorganized melee.

& & &

Captain John Fredon of the Republic Mon-Calamari Star Cruiser _Starstrike _maneuvered his ship to dodge the incoming plasma torpedoes from the port side, only to be hit by assault cannon rounds from the Hiigarian Assault Frigate, the ship rumbled and shook. An ear piercing scream reverberated around the hull of the ship, then the sound of something sizzling.

"Sir, the Confederates have brought the dorsal shield down with their particle cannons! At the same time the plasma torpedoes overloaded a small section of our port shield!"

Fredon banged his fist on the plasteel control panel. The UNSC Destroyer floated past the viewport, being blown apart by turbolaser bolts, the starboard MAC cannon was riddled with jagged holes, something exploded and it came free. The port MAC cannon roared, the MAC round sleeting through space to rip a Republic frigate to shreds. A-Wings, B-Wings and X-Wings were swarming around the Confederate Frigate, each launching proton torpedoes or strafing her gun batteries and armor, some of the view ports melted and shattered, leaking atmosphere before the heavy blast doors slammed down. The frigate did a high energy turn, smashing some of the small single craft on her hull and shields. It slid past the _Starstrike_, her hull narrowly missing the deflector shields by mere meters. The bridge actually rumbled and shook, temperature had gone up momentarily by ten degrees Celsius, all of which betraying the massive amounts of energy emanating from the Confederate warships to the captain. One of the communications towers snapped and shattered against the shields of the Confederate warship. The Confederate warship grazed the deflector shields, a foot of her armor was taken off, she was still moving at high speeds. The salvo of proton torpedoes the _Starstrike _had launched earlier at the warship were now heading towards them, the near-ramming maneuver had taken their shields down. The Confederate frigate swung around the ship in another high-energy turn. It sped away, but the proton torpedoes could not adjust for the sudden change in heading and slammed against the _Starstrike_'s hull. She shook and shuddered, men, equipment and droids were forcefully ejected by the sudden decompression of the decks, then the _Starstrike_ exploded.

& & &

The Confederate Conestoga Class Frigate, the "_Moderantis_" had her main weapons power coupling severed by one of the Republic Destroyer size vessels. So instead of retreating, her captain got inventive, he did several emergency turns, all with her emergency thrusters activated and at full power. After the frigate exploded, the _Moderantis _did an orbital slingshot maneuver, miraculously, the power coupling snapped back into place. She groaned eagerly for the next kill. Her shipboard AI said

"Wahoo! Our weapons are back! Now we can kick some treacherous ass!"

"Main cannon at 65 percent and charging!" an officer reported "We will be able to fire at seventy! Damage will be minimal unless we fire at eighty percent power!"

"WEPSCOM, lock onto the nearest Republic Cruiser, fire all plasma charge torpedoes and anti-ship missiles! NAVCOM, slow us down to fifty percent speed!"

A chorus of 'Aye sir's came from various areas of the bridge. The frigate slowed and passed a Republic Nebulon-B Frigate, fireballs blossomed all across her flank as plasma charge torpedoes and missiles impacted on her deflector shields. After two volleys, the shields flickered and lost cohesion, allowing particle bolts to penetrate deep into her hull, another frigate made a deadly mistake as it moved to help the Nebulon-B; it passed in front of the two prongs of the frigate, a white beam lanced out and speared the ship, her reactor was pierced and was completely destroyed, not allowing it to melt down and effectively disabling the ship. It was a prime target for salvage.

& & &

Captain Jonas Jackson of the New Republic closed his eyes, waiting for the searing pain and blindingly bright light. But it never came, instead, the bridge was plunged into darkness.

"Sir, that particle beam has pierced and destroyed our reactor. We are lucky that we had a secondary reactor hooked to our life support systems." his Damage Control officer reported.

The ship lurched and tumbled, the artificial gravity generators which were running on the last of the energy in their capacitors failed. Everyone began floating, and since most of the crew had never been in a zero-g environment, they began vomiting. Several minutes later, there were green and yellow balls of goo that nobody wanted to touch. Through the view ports, everybody saw that the battle was almost matched, but the Confederates were winning because of their stronger shields and armor, larger caliber and higher output weapons, and faster engines. One of their destroyers for the price of two Mon-Calamari Star Cruisers. But their large super-dreadnought class vessel was fighting off entire battle groups on her own, her particle weapons could take shields down in just three shots. And her energy bolt launchers were deadly on their own right, they could cut straight through a fully armed, armored and shielded Mon-Calamari Battleship, and five shots were enough to split one in half. The Republic was having a fairly easier time with the UNSC, all they had to do was avoid entering the firing angle of their MAC cannons, but it was difficult with the New Covenant ships hounding them. The Hiigarians were having a very hard time because of their relative inexperience in the art of warfare.

Back on the ground, the CUS had begun landing troops to disable the land based turrets, their orders were to take them down or to capture them while avoiding any civilian casualties, the fighters that were stunt-flying were fully armed should a situation arise so they were now flying escort, an automated defense turret blew the wing off one of the Confederate fighters, it entered a spin and began trailing smoke, the pilot ejected and landed in an open-top speeder. The surprised driver was even more surprised to see a humanoid decked in half a ton of armor and aviation gear land on top of his groceries.

"Land over there!" the pilot ordered, pointing to a balcony where three speeders were parked.

The driver complied, weaving through traffic and other obstacles

The fighter hit the side of an office building, which thankfully was empty except for some cleaning droids.

One of the Confederate transports touched down safely on top of a hotel. Her maximum capacity was fifty soldiers, all decked out in a ton of powered assault armor. It was radically different from the armor the security marines wore when on duty on a Confederate starship. The armor incorporated shields, a HUD, several storage pockets, ability to interface with AIs, other electronics and weapons, and the ability to allow an un-augmented human to lift thirty five tons above his or her head. The soldiers that were in the ship were ten Confederate Marines, twenty UNSC and New Covenant soldiers, and three Crusaders. The Confederates all had MA7H Assault Rifles, with 10.02mm EMP, HE, MMP (Mono-Molecular Point) and standard rounds, all in sixty round magazines with ten each. All had M49K SMGs as sidearms and three had heavy weapons of some sort, one had a Particle Beam Cannon, another had a Scorpion Class Guided Armor Piercing Rocket Launcher and the third had a MG-169 STW (Squad Takedown Weapon, as a single Confederate Marine could take entire squads down with just one eight hundred round belt.). The mixed force moved out, some rappelled down the side of the building and found that their cables were too short, so they broke the windows and started from there, methodically sweeping each room. Most of the rooms had civilians in them, most of which supported the marines.

"I dunno why they would fire on you guys, as far as we know you did nothing." one of the tenants said.

Some however attempted to take down the attackers, the marines however let them deal the first blow to their shields, while the UNSC forces were authorized to knock them unconscious. While other rooms had Republic officers and soldiers, the soldiers were gunned down by the new coalition while the officers were captured and beamed up to the _Shadow of the Day_ using the transporter technology of the Federation.

& & &

Private Williams of the Republic Planetary Defense Force ducked into cover as the glowing blue orb stuck to his teammate exploded in a blue-white explosion, melting the barricade.

"Go! Go! Go!" a sergeant ordered.

The squad moved in, gunning down the scaly, four mandibled eight foot tall aliens with their blasters, before they died, shimmering energy fields erupted around them, absorbing the energy of the bolts. One of the gold armored aliens took some sort of handle from its clip and charged. A glowing, shimmering blue blade erupted from it.

"It's a lightsaber! Evade! Evade!" one of Williams' comrades shouted.

The blade cut through armor and flesh alike, cauterizing and fusing flesh while melting and vaporizing metal. Pink crystal shards sped through the air and embedded themselves in armor while green and blue bolts of plasma seared through the air, one passed over Williams' head, he felt the heat through his armor and almost made him urinate. Three of the green bolts, which were larger and had sparks jumping around them splashed across a Republic soldier's armor, he fell in pieces, his torso completely vaporized. Another blue orb sailed across and stuck to the sergeant's chest plate, he tried to pull it off, only to find his hand stuck to it. He and two other men were vaporized, while another sailed through the air with the force of the blast, he hit his head on a wall and he fell, his neck bent at an odd angle. Williams threw a thermal detonator, it exploded and engulfed three of the aliens with fusion, with the entry cleared they moved through the door.

& & &

"Sir, the Republic soldiers have taken floors one through twelve! Permission to send the Crusaders in." A UNSC marine said.

"Permission granted son." the Confederate sergeant replied

"This is Coalition Ground Team Alpha Romeo Juliet Niner Niner Seven to _Shadow of the Day_. Requesting a trio of Crusaders, the enemy has overrun our positions."

"Roger that. They'll arrive in a minute!" a female voice said over the line.

The building shook as the Crusaders hit the rooftop in their orbital insertion pods, rappelled down the building, since they bought a lot of rope, they had no problem sliding down the building.

& & &

Sergeant Zyberiak reloaded his MA7H, they were hiding behind overturned tables, vending machines and even destroyed droids. His twelve man squad was reduced to five, in front of them, there were twenty dead Republic soldiers. Five Republic soldiers ran around the corner, their strange weapons firing, Zyberiak's shields flared, assault rifles thundered, sealing the fates of those unlucky enough to be caught, small explosions erupted on the floor and walls, also on the armor of the enemy small chunks of armor, flesh and bone flew away. More men thudded on the floor on both sides. Soon Zyberiak was alone, he paused to let his shields recharge, then lifted a vending machine, but first, he touched a button, a canned drink appeared in the collection slot, he took it and placed it in the hydration pouch on his armor. Zyberiak opened the top and placed all the grenades he could find and placed it in the machine, activated another grenade and dropped it in, he closed the top and he heaved it at the Republic soldiers' barricade, the machine sailed above their heads and detonated. A thunderous explosion rang throughout the building, and for a moment the sounds of weapons' fire stopped. The enemy soldiers were showered with plasma, shrapnel, protons, antimatter and superheated drink and coolant and everything in between.


	7. The Second Cataclysm War, Part Three

Down on the streets of Coruscant, in Denny's Diner, Confederate, UNSC and New Covenant troops were taking shelter. One of the serving droids fell, a smoking hole in its head. The rhythmic _crack _of assault rifles was punctuated by the occasional _whoosh click _of SPNKr Rocket Launchers or Warhammer Class AA/AP Rocket launchers, or maybe the _thump _of silenced S-207R Rail-Sniper Rifles.

The Coalition troops were supposed to take out or capture one of the surface based anti-ship weapon batteries. The soldiers had breached the outer walls of the compound, but were routed by the superior in numbers Republic forces, outside the diner, bodies were piled up, restricting the fields of view on both sides. A LAAT Tank floated past a burning M808B Scorpion, the turret vaporized. A Confederate MHT-0672 Praying Mantis class tank uncloaked and fired one of her two Pincer class Medium Assault Particle Cannons, then opened up with the 70MM chain gun, peppering the LAAT with bullet holes, one of the two particle bolts found its mark and blew a large hole in the tank, sparks and streaks of electricity were coming out of the hole, the tank fell to the ground with a solid _thump_.

Three Security Walkers stepped over the piles of mangled bodies and began firing at the windows on the diner, one of the walkers fell to a Sparrowhawk Class Interceptor, another stepped on a Lotus mine, blowing its foot off. The third was undamaged, it continued spraying the inside of the diner with blaster fire. Marines, Sangheili and Confederates fell. One of the rocket jockeys fired at the turntable, the rocket left a trail of white smoke and smashed into the walker. The shaped charge detonated, locking the turntable in place. A Crusader ran out, wielding a mono molecular-energy blade. He jumped and dug the blade into its back, then sliced the legs into eight pieces, and finally cut the cockpit off. Republic soldiers and clone troopers fell, one had his legs torn apart, he managed to crawl a few feet before dying of blood loss, one fell to the blade of a Crusader, he lived long enough to catch his guts. Puddles and pools of blood, spent shell casings, discarded plasma weapons, fragments and shards of armor, splinters of bone and bodies were scattered about on both sides. A UNSC marine had her head blasted off, blood flowed like a fountain from the stump that was once her neck.

**Confederate Capitol Planet, Nova Beta Armeston**

**Date: March 32, 2570 (UNSC Time)**

**Rustenberg City, Hubnester Square.**

"It has been six weeks since the disappearance of the Confederate First Fleet "Liberation" under the command of High-Admiral and President Kazimir McDougal. Princess Meygan of the Royal Sovereignty of Aralonia has just arrived at the council meeting."

The camera follows the news reporter as she runs to catch the princess.

"What will you do to help?" she asked

"As allies of the Confederacy, we will do all that we can to find that fleet. We will contribute all available resources to find Kazimir and prevent him from falling into enemy hands!" Meygan answered

"Thank you." the reporter said "This is Laika O'Connor, now signing off!"

Back at the broadcasting studio, the cameras panned to show the two reporters.

"Now as always, we will end with the section we call the Bright Side!" he said as the screen behind him switched to a different background "Today, there have been significant breakthroughs in the field of biotechnology, a start up firm named Phoenix Rising has developed a new kind of bio-organic circuitry in the form of a tattoo, they call them OC-Tattoos. They allow normal, un-augmented people to interface with electronics ranging from Visual Display Glasses and Multipurpose Wrist Mounted Computers to Starship Controls, these OC-Tattoos are also compatible with several implants like the Virtual Vision Implant from Makayev Interstellar Corporation, or the Data Crystal from Xavier Data-Storage and Processing."

**USAF _Daedalus_, Low Earth Orbit**

**Earth, Unknown Alternate Dimension**

**02:32.06 PM**

"We've detected several unknown contacts at the edge of our system, profiles show that they're not Jaffa, or Goa'uld, Asgard nor any other race for that matter, sir." the sensor officer said "I estimate five hundred in total, they're heading in."

"Alert the fleet, we only have twelve ships, if they have hostile intentions, then show them what we're made of. But for now, raise shields and power up the weapons." Captain Steven Caldwell said

"They're hailing us captain!" an officer called out

"Put it on."

"This is Admiral Mandala of the Twelve Colonies. You are the Thirteenth Tribe of Kobol, join us in brotherhood." a voice came over the speakers.

"Sir, intercepted communications indicate that they want to subjugate us!" the same officer called out.

"This is the United States Air Force _Daedalus_, we do not wish to join you. Please leave us in peace, you have ten minutes." Caldwell replied.

"No, there is only one answer, join us please. Reconsider!" Mandala stated

"Leave us alone, you have five minutes."

The Colonial fleet opened fire, railgun rounds streaked through space, followed by nuclear tipped missiles in the Gigaton range. The Earth fleet replied with their own salvo, their railgun rounds merely scratching the massive Battlestar's armor, they were only slightly better against the Warstars. The Daedalus Class ships opened fire with their particle projector cannons, eviscerating the Battlestars and punching straight through them. Fireballs blossomed on both sides, railgun rounds and nukes harmlessly detonating on the Earth Fleet's shields. Several F-302s loaded with naquadah enhanced missiles launched their payloads at the Colonial fleet, fighter bays exploded. A lone naquadah enhanced nuke from the _Daedalus. _The nuke passed point defense screens and exploded within the edge of the Colonial fleet, a fireball brighter than the sun expanded outward, ripping even the mighty Battlestars apart with its fury, ships exploded, showering their sisters with shrapnel, others were smashed into their comrades, fusing their superstructures together. The fireball dispersed and faded, the fifty odd ships that were engulfed by the firestorm were nothing but floating pieces of scrap. The Colonial fleet paused momentarily, everyone shocked by the destruction they saw, some of the captains considered pulling away from the fleet and initiating jump procedures. After a few seconds of silence on both sides, the Colonial fleet reluctantly opened fire.

**Imperial Surprise Attack Fleet, in dry dock**

**Uncharted Areas, Unknown Outer Fringe World**

**1200 Hours**

"The Confederates have softened Coruscant into pulp. It's time to attack!" A fleet commander announced. Hundreds of blurs sped across space, reaching near relativistic speeds before entering hyperspace.

**Confederate Scout Fleet, near Intermis-Galacticum Portal**

**Thor VII Geosynchronous Orbit, Thor System, Core-Thirty-Two**

**1100 Hours**

"Okay, this is Commodore Alain McHutcherson. Are all ships green?" Commodore Alain asked, they have been tasked to locate the First Confederate Fleet "The _Opportunity _is ready."

"This is CUS-FFG recognition code Nadazero-Unaone-Kartefour-Niner. Seraph Class "_Pathfinder" _all systems green."

"This is MRA-FFG recognition code Alpha-Delta-Hotel-Charlie Unaone. Retribution Class "_Truthseeker_" all systems go!"

"This is the Royal Aralonian Navy Frigate recognition code Halo-Delta-Epsilon-Kartefour. Viscount Class "_Raleigh Burke_" we are cleared, weapons on-line, scanners are at full resolution, shields active and at full dissipation, sub light drives are at maximum efficiency."

"This is CUS-FFG recognition code Kartefour-Bissotwo-Terrathree-Setteseven. Wraith Class "_Spirit_" all systems checked!"

"Okay then!" Alain said "Form up around the gate. Activate when ready!"

The five ships formed up around the gate, the _Pathfinder _transmitted the activation codes, eight yellow beams grouped into two lanced from the ring and stopped at the center, the ring slowly began to rotate. Three bright red beams came next, the ring picked up speed. Five bright blue beams lanced towards the center of the ring. A faint glow appeared in the center, it expanded outwards and grew in intensity until it outshone even the stars! The _Pathfinder_, followed by the _Truthseeker_, then the _Raleigh Burke_ and then the _Spirit_, and finally the _Opportunity_ plunged into the gate, each disappearing in the glow. A static ridden message came from the gate

"-ate malf- s beau-ul"

**Confederate Scout Fleet in orbit around H-Congruous planet**

**Unknown system, Unknown Galaxy**

**Mission Clock out of sync**

"The gate has malfunctioned, we are in unknown territory. But scanners indicate that there is an H-Congruous planet nearby." Alain addressed the fleet "We will send a landing party to see if it is suitable for an outpost. Dismissed."

Several scout drones had been launched, they revealed that there was life on the planet, "scaly four legged chicken thingies!" an ensign commented. The animals were seen feeding on a type of grass, which were feathery in appearance, those scaly creatures were supposedly the largest form of animal life on the planet. They also seemed restless, fidgeting here and there.

A single drop ship was launched from orbit. Its hull glowing red hot during re-entry. It stabilized and communications returned. The ship descended through the clouds and hovered a meter above an empty field. Six explorers in powered exoskeletons and armed with an array of data gathering instruments jumped out of the open bay door.

"Okay, someone will have to get a specimen of that animal we found. Preferably alive. We'll get some clippings and soil samples. We should send a spider drone to check out that tree over there!" a scientist ordered.

**Intersolar Commonwealth Navy ship _Second Chance,_ orbiting rejected H-Congruous Planet**

**HK-22165, Milky Way. Second-56**

**+1800 Hours.**

Captain Wilson Kime looked at the hysdar screen. It displayed six unknown vessels in orbit around that damned planet. The unknowns had emerged from a massive energy spike and quantum disturbance. The _Second Chance _had been sent to investigate. Kime had not yet given any orders regarding the unknowns.

"Sir, I'm reading several unencrypted transmissions from the unknown vessels to the exploration team and vice-versa. I'm tapping into the feed now." an officer said, she touched an icon in her virtual vision. Voices drifted in from static.

"Damn, I wish I could join you down there. Looks like fun." a gruff voice said

"You know the regs sir. And don't use Kazimir as an example!" another voice said, sounding slightly younger than the previous one.

"The spider drone is ready doc!" a female voice announced

"Good, we'll leave drop it before we leave. And Kat, do me a favor, check the air for any toxic chemicals the scanners might have missed." 'doc' ordered

"Aye sir!" Kat said "The air is safe sir. We can take our helmets off."

Several hisses were heard.

"Damn, this beats recycled air!" an even younger voice said

"Geez, Ric! You'll get used to it, that is unless you're a sissy!" Kat teased.

"Okay kids, stop insulting one another. You'll make the doctor mad." doc said in a tone that was used by lecturing parents.

"Sorry dad." Kat joked.

"Ah, sir? I've got the animal." another female voice said

"Good, Beth hand it over." doc ordered, the clink of metal on metal was heard "Geez, this thing is ugly."

"Um sir?" an apprehensive voice asked "The grass is moving."

"Nonse- oh shit! It's carnivorous."

The _hiss_ of acid being sprayed out was heard.

"Shit! Shit! Shit! Everyone move out, we'll leave the spider drone here."

The sounds now heard were drops of water hitting flesh and metal were now heard on the transmission.

"Sir. This planet is unsuitable for an outpost. We'll have to find another one." doc said

"Okay, once you and your team get aboard. We'll start planetary bombardment, those acids are extremely corrosive and could be used as a weapon by our enemies. Alain out."

"Shit!" Kime cursed "Hail them on all channels!"

"Done sir."

"This is Captain Wilson Kime of the Intersolar Commonwealth Navy Ship _Second Chance _to unknown alien vessels. Cease your planetary bombardment. You are in Intersolar Commonwealth territory. Bombarding that planet is an act of war! I repeat. Bombarding that planet is an act of war!" Kime said

"This is Commodore Alain McHutcherson of the Confederacy of United Suns Navy frigate _Opportunity_ we are standing down." the person on the other side of the line said.

"Good, state your intention of being here." Kime ordered

"We are searching for our President and High-Admiral. Our jump gate has malfunctioned, we are trapped here in another galaxy or possibly in an alternate dimension." Alain answered.

Kime found this hard to believe.

"Ha!" he scoffed "You must be one of the Starflyer's agents!"

**Denny's Diner, Coruscant.**

**Coruscant, the Galaxy**

**0100 Hours (1 AM Local Time)**

B-Wings were strafing the diner, a few proton torpedoes had struck the ground close to the diner, leaving wide, shallow craters. Bodies were piled on both sides, the Confederates had resorted to using Sentinel, Enforcer and the new Guardian drones to reinforce their dwindling forces. Lasers and crystal shards were streaking through the air to hit home. The Confederates were also beginning to land ever increasing amounts of firepower, the most noticeable of which were the bipedal walkers, most of which looked like birds. Some sporting missile racks, arms crammed with all sorts of weapons. Ranging from slugthrowers to lasers, others bearing artillery pieces, some were huge anthropomorphic giants.

Delta Squad ducked into an alleyway as on of the smaller and faster walkers thundered by, it had the size of an AT-ST yet could reach speeds even speeder-bikes were jealous of. It was chasing down a pack of speeders, their pilots being foolhardy enough to attack it. Projectiles were leaving their barrels at an incredible rate. Lasers sizzled through the air, leaving burn marks wherever they hit. Even missiles were streaking through the air. One of the speeder bikes turned around, and was crushed by seventeen tons of metal. Fixer had attempted to hack into their controls, but to no avail. He was kicked, banned, booted and even counter-hacked by some unknown entity. A Republic Gunship intercepted the walker, and was blown to bits by an even larger, more fearsome walker. Two projectiles flew eagerly at the gunship with a dominant sounding _bang_, the projectiles left shock waves in their wake, air seemed to flex and distort. The projectiles struck the unfortunate gunship one after the other, the craft bucked one way then the other before exploding.

In the skies, the Confederates were also gaining dominance. The mixed craft ripping X-Wings, A-Wings and B-Wings into shreds before they could get shots at them. And if the shots hit, they just dissipated on the strike craft's shields.

**Confederate Flagship _Shadow of the _Day's Bridge, High Orbit above Coruscant**

**Coruscant, the Galaxy**

**0122 Hours**

"Black sheep wall!" came over the radio. The voice was requesting a sensor scan.

"Request granted. Power overwhelming!" Kazimir said "We'll break the compound walls for you. Particle Lance in thirty." Kazimir added "WEPSCOM, No glues!"

"Aye sir!" the officer said "Particle lance on your mark, the FROSCH bolt has left the barrel and will impact in thirty."

Kazimir waited three seconds

"Mark!"

A searing white particle lance left the accelerator just before the FROSCH bolt hit the compound's shields, bringing them down. The lance seared through the thick compound walls like a white hot knife through butter.

"Sir, Operation C-Wal." the soldier said, he needed reinforcements "Even though the compound's walls have been breached, they're still routing us. Bring in the Timberwolf II units, hell even the Atlas Mk X units!"

"First Mate! Take command, I'm going in." Kazimir said, the doors slid shut behind him a second later.

Kazimir took the transport system to the mechanized armor bay. Seconds later, he disembarked. He typed in the code, slid his pass card and had his DNA scanned. The large doors slid open with a _groan_, the lights flickered to life and Kazimir picked out his prized Timberwolf Mk. II, or more commonly known by the Confederacy's enemies as the Mad Cat Mk. II, instead of the silver, yellow orchre and purple markings, it was black, purple and silver. He climbed into its cockpit and began flipping switches, turning dials and pressing buttons here and there. It rumbled to life, screens flickered on and the machine straightened. Kazimir pushed the throttle forward slightly and walked the machine out of the bay. It thundered into the launch bay, a dropship was waiting for him, the ramp down. Kazimir slowly guided the machine into the cargo pod, the ramp closed and Kazimir shut the 'mech down. The dropship accelerated into space heading towards Coruscant.

* * *

AN: Don't worry, the Beast's coming soon.


	8. The Second Cataclysm War, Part Four

"This is dropship X-ray Kartefour-Pantafive-Terrathree, preparing to hot-drop the package." the dropship's pilot said.

"This is Kazimir, everything is green. Punch it!"

The pilot pressed the red 'jettison' button. Two _thumps_ were heard as the locks slid into the open position. Then a whirring sound filled the pilot's ears, the dropship lurched upwards as its ninety ton burden plummeted to the ground below. Its descent thrusters activated and slowed the cargo container down before the explosive bolts holding them in place detonated. The container accelerated again, and after a thirty-second free fall. It slammed into the ferrocrete paved road right in front of a battalion of clone troopers. The sides of the rectangular container were blown off by explosives, two of the four panels slammed into the abandoned buildings on either side of the street. Another smashed into a security walker, crushing its cockpit. The troopers ducked, waiting for the smoke to clear. It began to dissipate into the atmosphere, some of the troopers squinted, trying to see through the smoke. Then the sonic boom from the dropship rang into their ears, the shockwave blowing all the smoke away. The troopers gasped at the huge, awe-inspiring sight before them. A sleek black machine, with purple and yellow orchre markings loomed over them. The security walkers opened fire, red blaster bolts streaming through the air, only dissipating harmlessly against its shields. Then the machine opened fire, red, green and blue beams lanced out at the walkers, cutting holes or leaving deep gashes in the walkers. Then a couple of shots rang out. Two of the walkers fell. Large, numerous holes in their armor. Another cannon opened fire, clone troopers merely disintegrating into fine clouds of blood.

Kazimir ordered his on board AI "Run a scan for any life signs bar the hostiles."

A sultry female voice said "Scanning." three seconds passed "No other life signs detected."

"Good, activate the sonic cannon." Kazimir said.

Several armor panels slid back, then a piercing tone filled the air.

"Matching resonant frequencies."

Several tags appeared on Kazimir's HUD. Some turned green, some stayed red.

"Done." the AI exclaimed.

A pulsing sound filled the air, followed by an oscillating tone. The firing stopped, troopers looked at each other in confusion. The sound increased in volume, everything began vibrating madly, armor, weapons, ferrocrete and transparisteel, and even flesh and bone.

Trooper Six-Seventeen saw what was happening, he thought it was an earthquake. He saw his HUD go off-line, a crack began running from a corner. He saw his armor flexing and cracking off. He looked around, his fellow troopers were in the same predicament. A faceplate shattered inwards, the trooper behind it brought his hand up in instinct. His chest plate exploded outwards. Six-Seventeen lost balance, he looked to his left and saw the facade of a building beginning to shatter and crack.

_This is an experimental sonic weapon. It switches frequencies with a target until the frequencies match. And when that happens, you have found the target's resonant frequency. It is when the phase and amplitude match, thus destroying the target._

Six-Seventeen remembered, that weapon was never finished. His legs shattered like glass, micro fractures in his bones expanded, the ferrocrete pavement shattered. One of the buildings fell, Six-Seventeen's skull broke open just as he turned around.

**Taiidan Empire Staging Point**

**Tallon II**

**0500 Hours**

"The time has come. On this day, we will destroy the most valuable asset in Hiigarian space. Tanis base." the Emperor announced "The space surrounding the station is sparsely defended, with only fifteen Destroyer class vessels and two Heavy Cruisers. We will crush them like the insects that they are!"

The transmission ended. With that, several thousand rectangular waveforms washed over the Taiidan ships, making it one of the largest jumps in history.

**Confederate Destroyer, DD 2408 "Gerson", Tanis System**

**Hiigarian Space**

**1100 Hours**

"Sir, we're picking up thousands of jump signatures. They use the same jump drives as the Hiigarians, but hysdar scans show that their silhouettes are of Taiidan make, with Turanic Raider reinforcements. The best course of action is to engage upon sighting." Captain Gerald McMaseritzky's ship board AI suggested.

"Go ahead Athena, relay those orders to the defense fleet, and send word to the First Fleet." Gerald said

"Okay sir!" the AI saluted, before her holographic form disappeared.

Gerald rubbed his forehead, although he was a veteran from the Battle of Burghammer, in which the combined MRA/CUS forces were outnumbered twenty five to one. Gerald knew that that even without the _Shadow of the Day_ or anything above a Battleship class vessel, they would still win, although at a high cost. The defense station was not even half-completed and the Hiigarian ships were still being built and rebuilt with better weapons, propulsion and even on ship shield systems. The first Hiigarian Heavy Cruiser class vessel would be completed in a matter of minutes, the first Assault Frigate batch had already been completed and the second batch was underway, the other ships were being built at the Confederate Fleetyard, which was spewing Hiigarian Destroyers, Missile Destroyers, Frigates of all types and wings of strike-craft at an incredible rate.

The first Taiidan warship dropped out of hyperspace.

**Jedi Council, Coruscant**

**1530 Hours**

"The Confederates have, or rather had no hostile intentions until the defense batteries opened fire!" Luke said to the council.

"Then why did they vaporize a Nebulon-B class Medical Frigate when it opened fire?" a council member asked

"That fleet was under the command of another leader. Not the one that is currently on the surface, fighting among his men." Luke explained

"And why are they destroying our medical frigates?" asked another

"Though I am not an expert in naval tactics." Luke said "They presume that the Nebulon-B class ships are combat ships, not medical ships because the Nebulon-Bs are equipped with turbolaser batteries, and adequate shielding. And because of the singular strut holding the front and back halves together, they must have been deemed 'dangerous but easily destroyed' threats."

"I presume Master Skywalker is right." a wizened old man stood up "This meeting is adjourned."

The members stood up, muttering among themselves.

The old man tapped Luke on the shoulder.

"How did you know that these 'Confederates' have no hostile intentions?" he asked

"I have scanned their minds, and they have no intentions of injuring or killing civilians, conquering the planet or even of warfare. It seems that they only want to defend themselves and take down the batteries so that a proper meeting could take place." Luke said "I read their President's mind, he seems good enough."

"Appearances could be deceiving my boy." the man said "Yes, their leader may be benevolent, but his soldiers might have their own agendas."

And with that, the old man left, leaving Luke to contemplate on the old man's words.

**Denny's Diner, Coruscant**

**Coruscant**

**1532 Hours**

The Republic soldiers were swarming the diner, some had already gotten inside. Tables were overturned, various objects used as cover; droids, chairs, vending machines and even pieces of rubble. Gunfire was streaming here and there, drowned out by the occasional explosion. Men fell, blood pooling on the floor and splashing on everything, medics on each side hurrying to save the wounded. An ARC Trooper charged, ducking behind cover, he almost made it to the Confederate line before his guts were sprayed out on the floor behind him by a trio of 10.05 mm rounds, the rounds sleeting through the air at Mach-18. another bullet nearly entered his skull, passing just centimeters from the side of his head, sonic overpressure tearing the side of his helmet off. He fell to the floor, breathing heavily. Above him, three Confederate marines jumped neatly over the barricade, sailing through the air to land just outside the Republic line, the floor shook, three sets of boot prints imprinted on the floor. One grabbed the heavy topped table and flipped it over, pinning those behind it to the floor. Another delivered a punch to a Trooper's chest plate, shattering it like glass and allowing the gauntleted fist to crush the ribcage inwards, puncturing the heart. The unlucky Trooper flew into the thermal detonator stock and set them off. The third kicked a trooper in the chin, tearing his head straight off the neck, the severed head smashed into the ceiling with a wet _splat_. A squad of troopers charged, weapons blazing with fury, attempting to take down the armored behemoths. Blaster bolts were absorbed by the shields, rifle fire pinned the troopers down and taking the lives of those who did not react fast enough.

Kazuael McFoster swung his gun in a wide arc. It smashed into the side of a trooper's helmet, denting it and cracking the faceplate, allowing blood to leak out from in between the cracks. A clone trooper equipped with a vibroblade jumped on his back, aiming to drive the blade into the base of his neck. Kazuael threw him over his head and grabbed him by the legs, he spun the trooper around for several seconds and let go. Another hit him in the back with his blaster, he spun around and wrapped an armored gauntlet around the weapon, the trooper smashed a fist into the side of his helmet, only to be deflected by his shields. Three blaster bolts Kazuael's back, making him stumble before regaining his balance. Kazuael snapped the trooper's neck with a flick of his wrist before turning around to face the threats.

Trooper Four-Nineteen reared back in shock, he had just fired _three_ anti-armor bolts at the enemy, yet he was still standing. The soldier sped to a blur then stopped right in front of him. He stared up at the purple reflective faceplate. He felt a searing pain in his chest and he looked down to see a blade in his chest. It glowed with energy, but not as much as a lightsaber. His vision faded, he felt tired, then he closed his eyes for the last time.

**Residential District, Coruscant**

**1451 Hours**

Kazimir set the throttle to one-hundred percent, he was darting into streets making sure to open fire at targets of opportunity whilst passing by them. He had forgotten about the heat meter, which had been steadily rising until an alarm sounded

"'mech overheating, commencing automatic shutdown." the AI's sultry voice chimed in Kazimir's ears

"Shit!" he cursed

He pulled a lever, causing several armor panels to swing open to reveal several coolant pipes. Air rushed over the pipes, bringing the temperature down, air seemed to distort around the pipes. Then on the back, two vents opened and superheated plumes of plasma streamed out for a few seconds. The 'mech froze then began moving again.

"Power levels dropping, heat returning to normal. Re-stabilizing reactor core." the AI said

Kazimir massaged his forehead. He looked behind the 'mech using a camera, and he saw two large streaks of glass. He throttled forward again, and he reached the breached compound. Marines were pouring through the collapsed portion of the wall. 'mechs were holding hostile forces back to buy time. Then the giant guns fell limp, lights flickered off and turrets froze. Republic soldiers looked around in shock, then they began to retreat.

"The target is neutralized, reprogramming surface weapons, returning power to base!" an AI said over the comm.

The Republic soldiers looked around again, and cheered then they charged. But the war cries changed into screams of horror and surprise as their turrets began firing upon them. Many fell, smoking holes in their armor or with entire limbs vaporized. Sangheili Scarabs and Wraiths lobbed plasma, turning whatever they hit into partially melted mounds. The scaly soldiers charged, ripping through the Republican line with vigor. UNSC Marines and ODSTs opened fire with their weapons, shredding armor and flesh alike, blood and gore streaked and splashed on the floor. The horrid smell of burning flesh permeated the air and fires ran throughout the compound, left behind by Scarab walkers and plasma weapons. Shell casings and discarded weapons were scattered haphazardly on the ground.

Overhead, Republic warships were blasted apart, ripped to shreds, mangled and vaporized and in other words, rendered inoperable. A hundred Star Destroyers decelerated from hyperspace. Filling the void between the three warring forces with green streaks. Shields flared and flickered as turbolasers slammed into them, a Confederate Frigate went down, her engines blown apart. The _Shadow of the Day_ opened fire with her antimatter beam cannons, vaporizing a cluster of the triangular ships. Missiles sped from their tubes, MAC rounds tore through the Imperials with apathy. A UNSC Destroyer listed, atmosphere leaking from the various holes and scars dotting her hull. She accelerated into the Star Destroyer that was about to deal the killing blow. If she was going down, her killer would go down with her. She rammed bow first into the tower structure, armor plating cracked and buckled. Her spine broke, their superstructures interlocked and a momentary sun blossomed then faded to reveal a small debris field in its wake.

**Confederate Destroyer, DD 2408 "Gerson", Tanis System**

**Hiigarian Space**

**1500 Hours**

The Gerson fired her primary particle cannons at an Assault Frigate, some of the particle bolts went wide, some hit asteroids, fragmenting them others slammed into other vessels. Those that hit their marks dealt tremendous damage, the Frigate's spine ceased to exist after a particle lance speared through the center of the ship. She fired her cannons for the last time before detonating. Sparrowhawk Class Interceptors dueled with their Taiidani counterparts, particle bolts and autocannon rounds streaking this way and that. One of the Taiidan Interceptors spun into his wingman, destroying both. A Confederacy modified UNSC Longsword fired several anti-ship missiles into the flank of a Taiidan Carrier, fireballs blossomed as fuel and ammunition detonated. Ion Beam Frigates proved useless on the Confederacy's warships, so did Missile Destroyers and Drone Frigates. Confederate particle lances sliced away at armor, leaving gashes with partially melted edges.

Jason Ferguson swung his Interceptor around, lining up the cross hair with one of the unknown strike-craft, which was currently dodging cannon fire. He pulled the trigger on his flight stick. Cannon rounds flew from the barrels, time seemed to slow and he saw the tracer rounds sail towards the target, they ricocheted off some invisible barrier. The strike-craft turned around and fired a blue-white beam at his Interceptor, the beam sliced off part of his wing and dug into his fuselage. Jason reached for the red ejection lever, he wrapped a hand around it and he twisted then pulled. The entire front section of the Interceptor pulled away, Jason was thrown around in his seat as the pod shook violently. The pod was spinning slowly to reveal explosions and flashes of light. The Taiidan fleet was being decimated, those seventeen ships, being outnumbered almost five hundred to three. One of their 'destroyers' exploded in a flash of light after being rammed by almost two hundred ships. Their 'cruiser' was taking on three Heavy Cruisers, and was winning. One of the Assault Frigates broke in half as it was struck by a blue colored projectile. Crewmen and equipment were sucked out into the void as air rushed out of the two halves of the ships. Another was speared by a yellow colored beam. The beam faded to reveal a smooth hole in her centerline, plasma rushed out as the magnetic containment failed. Two white-hot plumes of plasma leapt from the opposite ends of the ship, then her life finally ended in a flash of light. Frantic screams and shouts, with orders managing to come through all the chaos blasted Jason's ears as he flipped through the communications channels, with hisses of static often timed with explosions. One missile launched from the unknown 'cruiser' streaked into the largest formation, a three hundred-ship sphere, covering one of the most powerful warships in Taiidan history. The missile slammed into the Dreadnought's hull. Doing almost no damage to it, then a sphere of white hot fire blossomed out from the missile. It engulfed the formation, then faded to reveal a three hundred-strong graveyard, the once majestic vessels, carrying the Taiidan Empire's might now melted and twisted hulks, scarred beyond recognition, they silently moaned for their former glory.

**Taiidan Imperial Navy Assault Frigate "Reckoning", Tanis System**

**Hiigarian Space**

**1530 Hours**

Commander Fredrick Rowen stared at the horrifying sight unfolding before him. He stood immobile as his crew grew out of control. Some of the crew were crying, in fear, in shock and in sadness. Their ships seemed almost invincible, weapons fire did almost no harm, and ion beams were slightly better, but their shields still held. It seemed that the only way to bring the shields down was to ram into them at full speed, which had serious consequences; transmissions were riddled with static to the point that they were incomprehensible, strike-craft and even frigates momentarily lost power, and sometimes, an occasional ion beam weapon's capacitors would overload and melt. And even then, their armor never seemed to yield. The ship listed as she was struck by some of the unknowns' weapons. Fredrick's eyes grew even wider as he saw the Dreadnought be engulfed by a ball of white flame. Tears flowed unheeded from his eyes as the three hundred-strong formation was utterly destroyed, leaving only melted wrecks behind.

For a second, the Taiidan Fleet stopped firing. And that was just what the Confederates needed, massed alpha and beta strikes annihilated Taiidan ships, soon after. Only fifteen ships remained, quantum waveforms washed over their hulls and collapsed. They never came back.


	9. The Second Cataclysm War, Part Five

**Taiidan Imperial Defense Headquarters**

**Taiidan Capital**

**1700 Hours**

The Taiidan Emperor looked at the feeds, initially, he was optimistic about the outcome. But as the video continued on, his Defense Ministers gasped in horror and in fear. They had severely underestimated the unknowns' military strength. They seemed to be invulnerable, and out of the thousand Taiidan Warships that were launched, only fifteen survived. All of their crew reduced to babbling wrecks. The doors opened to allow a man clad in a hospital gown, with sensors attached to his forehead to monitor his brainwaves, he led by two men to a chair. The Emperor got up and walked over to him, knowing how to get answers from emotionally scarred people, he asked in a gentle manner

"What happened?"

"Dreadnought, destroyed!" he babbled "missile, ball of flame, alpha strike."

"How many ships?" The Emperor asked

"Seventeen! No backup." the man blurted out.

"How many were destroyed?"

"None!" the man shouted, his eyes darting around to the shadows on the wall.

The Emperor looked at the video screen again to see the Dreadnought being engulfed by a ball of fire, and the enemy launching a simultaneous alpha strike. He sat down and put his hand to his forehead.

"We call off the attacks. If seventeen ships could do that to thousands" he said "surely a hundred of those ships can smash us into the ground."

"We could capture one of their vessels and reverse-engineer their technology, which would give us an edge against the Hiigarians and could possibly overwhelm their defenses." one of the Emperor's advisers said.

"Then we do it. You will manage the project, and if it fails. We will give you to them." the Emperor said.

**Denny's Diner, Commercial District**

**Coruscant**

**1620 Hours**

The battle was over, blood, gore and the occasional body part was sprayed on the walls, the floor, what was left of the ceiling and even on the men and women who were in the battle. Men screamed in pain as medics extracted shrapnel and other sorts of debris from their bodies. There were pools of blood, both red and purple. Medics frantically rushed around, desperate to save as many lives as they can. Outside, the same scene was being repeated, only with the occasional piece of machinery signifying the site a Battle 'Mech or a Walker once stood.

**Low Orbit over Coruscant**

**1622 Hours**

The _Shadow of the Day _fired one of her main cannons. Tearing completely through a Super Star Destroyer, her shields, which are rated to withstand the power of the Sun being unable to compensate for the concentrated power of fifteen blue super-giants each antimatter beam cannon wielded, in their previous engagement, the cannons were set, per orders of Kazimir to only fifteen percent, as to avoid completely annihilating the Imperial Fleet. Another Super Star Destroyer fired her super laser at the _Shadow of the Day_, her shields flared but otherwise unharmed.

"Sir! Our ventral-center shield is down to five percent!" the DACON AI reported

"Dump excess power to that section, another hit like that and we're gone." The current captain of the ship said.

"Belay that!" Kazimir said, walking in.

"But sir! If they fire another beam, we'll be vaporized." he said while standing up "We might as well surrender."

"Stand down seaman!" Kazimir ordered "Have Strike Group Aleph-One separate from the fleet and flank the enemy. Then have the _Repentance _and the _Rickenbacker_ join up with us. Then activate the Short Range jump units, we'll phase in behind them. That will allow us to strike at their engines."

The orders were carried out, the _Dragon _class Dreadnought _Repentance_ fell into formation beside the _Shadow of the Day_, while the _Napoleon _class Battleship _Rickenbacker_ flanked the _Shadow of the Day_. The three ships disappeared in a flash of light and reappeared behind the Imperial fleet. A Confederate _Excalibur_ class Destroyer exploded in a flash of light, her antimatter reactors breached, a piece of debris slammed into an Imperial Star Destroyer, her shields shattered by a well aimed barrage of particle bolts. It bounced off her hull but left a large dent with a gash in the middle. Atmosphere streamed out of the gash before the blast doors could fully close. A particle bolt clipped the side of the tower, leaving a large gash with melted edges. A Sparrowhawk Class Interceptor rolled and wove through the turbolaser fire and launched an antimatter torpedo at the Star Destroyer, it slammed into the Star Destroyer, its hardened tip allowing it to penetrate into her armor to as much damage as possible. The tower blossomed into a dazzling explosion. Antimatter annihilating matter in a burst of energy. She listed, her control center completely vaporized by the torpedo. Her reactors overloaded and detonated, the weakened command deck torn away by the stresses put upon it by the explosion.

Kazimir watched the red, green and blue arrows disappear on the tactical screen. The blue arrows representing Coalition Forces, the red ones representing Imperial Forces and the green arrows representing the Republic's defense fleet. The red and green arrows disappeared at the fastest rate, an average of one per two seconds. While the Coalition's had an average of one per twenty seconds. The _Shadow of the Day_ shook as proton torpedoes slammed into her shields. A lull in the battle allowed Kazimir to allow the AIs to take control of operations and command. He was confident in the belief that his bridge crew were some of the best men and women, and that they could guide the ship to victory even with their captain absent. He assessed the situation for a second, then stepped out of the door. He boarded the transit system and sat down, he pressed a button ordering it to stop when it reached the Officer's Quarters.

_Kazimir maneuvered his 'mech around a corner, several transmissions streamed out of his communications system, the battle was over. He looked up and saw an Imperial fleet jump in_

"_Ah fuck!" he said to himself_

_He reached for the transmit button and pressed it_

"_This is Kazimir, calling for evac pronto. I need to get back to my ship."_

_His call was soon answered as a voice floated through the comm_

"_I'd be happy to help Kaz! ETA is one minute." a voice said_

"_Jozef! I thought you quit!" Kazimir said_

"_Well, after I quit the fighter business, I re-enlisted as a dropship pilot." Jozef explained_

"_Ah, well here I am now. Waiting for someone to take me up." Kazimir said, chuckling_

"_So Kaz. How's your sister, Laina?" Jozef asked as he brought his dropship down._

"_Well, for a start. She's mastered fifteen different martial arts compared to the six she had mastered when we last met. Well we're still close, considering we are in the same ship and our quarters are right next to each other." Kazimir replied "So how's mom?" he asked_

"_She got well soon after I joined up for the Drop Corps, I got word about it and sent her a holo. I'm not sure if she got it though." Jozef said_

"_Good to hear that Jo!" Kaz said, smiling. The dropship settled down and Kazimir moved his 'mech into the cargo bay. Kazimir flipped a switch and the machine settled into a crouch. Then he pressed a button, electromagnetic pads underneath the titanic feet activated and secured the 'mech. Kazimir got down and patted it lovingly on the nose then entered the forward cabin._

Kazimir chucked to himself as he remembered the conversation that followed

_Kazimir walked into the forward compartment and saw Jozef, he was almost as tall as Kazimir and had copper-gold hair. His eyes were two shades of blue, a sky blue outer iris and a stormy navy blue inner iris. They knocked their fists together then did a high-five. He also saw his other sister Alisha. She stood up and hugged her brother. She had straw colored hair with streaks of copper and gold, her irises were teal blue and silver. The siblings sat down beside each other._

"_How's life Kaz?" Alisha asked_

"_It's been fine lately. Though we seem to be in a very deep hole full of shit right now. But on the bright side, we've made many allies." Kazimir answered "How about you?" he asked_

"_It's fine- oh shit. Look out!" she cried._

_Kazimir stood up, ready to defend himself when he was knocked to the floor from the side. He grunted then pushed the person off him. He drew a stun prod and readied it, he figured his assailant was male. He turned the body around_

"_Jakob!" Kazimir exclaimed._

_Jakob began chuckling as he stood up._

"_Yeah, it's me. How's life Kaz?" he asked._

"_It's been fine lately." he said, repeating his words from earlier._

"_Ah, haven't seen you in a while, Kaz." he said_

_The dropship bucked then rolled. The two grabbing frantically at any handhold available._

"_Shit!" both of them cursed at the same time._

_Alisha was thrown around in her seat, but she stayed on it because of the harness._

"_Sorry about that, I was trying to evade some enemy fire."Jozef apologized_

_The dropship righted itself after a few seconds of rolling._

"_Apology accepted Jo. I'll go check my baby to see of she's alright." Kazimir said._

"_What?" Jakob asked_

"_He means his 'mech. He takes a lot of time taking care of it." Alisha explained_

"_A 'mech! Sweet!" Jakob said. He jumped to his feet and ran into the cargo bay._

"_Men and their machines." Alisha groaned._

Kazimir disembarked from the transit system and entered the hallway leading to the officer's quarters. He skipped his room and entered the Valhalla Officer's Canteen. It was small, only large enough to accommodate one hundred men on its seats. So far, only a tenth of its capacity was being used. Kazimir walked over to the bar and ordered a sandwich and a can of soda. The ship rumbled. No, _growled_ as she unleashed another broadside assault at the pack of Imperial Star Destroyers. Kazimir looked outside a viewport. The Imperial warships were still maneuvering to face the trio of ships. Fifteen of them were listing as their engines were shot out. Dogfights and skirmishes were being fought here and there, sometimes the trails ending in fireballs. A Sparrowhawk flashed by dangerously close, it was being chased by two X-Wings and a TIE, point defense shot one of the X-Wings down, it spun into one of the particle cannons just as it fired, the pilot had no hope of surviving.

The Sparrowhawk veered and rolled, but could not shake its pursuers. Her shields failed, blaster bolts tore away one of the engines, smoke poured out of the craft and she veered into a launch bay as the doors opened, a flight of Turtledove Class Heavy Bombers rushed out of the bay, they spread out as they neared a Super Star Destroyer, her shields had already been taken down by some well placed PPC fire from a couple of Sparrowhawks, they launched their payloads of antimatter torpedoes as they neared the massive ship, fifty trails of smoke followed the launch, the torpedoes pierced her thick armor and detonated within the compartments, fifty smaller explosions followed, fireballs blossoming out as her armor and interior disintegrated upon contact with the antimatter, then she vanished in a flash of light as her reactor detonated.

The _Shadow of the Day_ barrel rolled to allow the weapons on her starboard side to fire, three Star Destroyers exploded in bursts of flame and flashes of light, while a Super Star Destroyer was moderately damaged by the strike. She spun helplessly as her engines were destroyed, her bow slowly turned to face the _Shadow of the Day_, her super-laser charging. Kazimir felt the ship tilt, then turn upside-down as she maneuvered.

**Confederate Shipyard: Vos Relativistika**

**Khan Asteroid Field**

**0100 Hours. November 17, 2792 PA (Post-Arrival)**

Admiral Frederik O' Riley was looking outside the viewport of his personal yacht, he looked at the forty-three kilometer long warship that was undergoing construction in the void outside, she had been built to replace the missing _Shadow of the Day_, however, unlike the majority of Fleet Class Vessels, which were either Vanguards or Dreadnoughts, she was a Sovereign. One of the two in existence in the galaxy. She was based on the Akira Class Vanguard, only three had been built, but two remained, the _Shadow of the Day_ missing. Her long, sleek hull was still only partially formed, three of her six engines in place, two of which had been mounted on triangular projections on her flanks. Another was being carefully slid into place while her reactor assembly was lowered into place, six Point-Singularity Reactors, each accompanied by two antimatter reactors, which had two fusion reactors to help jump start the reactor and to provide extra power. Instead of the toroid shape of UNSC, or modern day fusion reactors, she had spherical ones, they were micro stars.

Her four main Radiance Class Antimatter Beam Projectors were already mounted, each mounted upon wide angle, fast-tracking mounts, one facing forward, one facing to the rear and one per flank, mounted so that at best, three could fire. One of her two secondary Radiance Class Particle Projection Beams had also been mounted, both could fire a broadside, to the front and to the back, their mounts were slower tracking, but had a high turn angle and longer range, all of her weapons could either fire straight up or straight down. And instead of the normal Particle Sprayer emplacements mounted as point defense, she mounted Pyotr-Veleiyki Class Antimatter Interception beams, each could fire fifteen times before having to cool and regenerate its antimatter, the entire process taking only half a second. Her massive electromagnetic acceleration coils were already in place, they were used to provide the particle cannons with their ammunition, and if in an emergency, the front end could be irised open to provide a deadly emergency weapon, that weapon had been nicknamed "Hubnester's Sword". Hundreds of kilometers of Hubnesterium armor had been shipped from various refineries and mines all over the Confederacy and her allies, the most heavily armored places had almost a kilometer of the super-dense, super hard armor in place, the armor allowed her to ram a Battleship Class Vessel without suffering any damage, but the armor was also backed up with other active and passive systems, such as FROSCH Guns, LANCET Beams, Graviton-Repulsion emplacements and also AEGIS and normal deflector shielding. Another system allowed her to repair herself by using nanites that upon reaching their destination, use their payload of individual atoms to recreate the matter that is to be replicated.

O' Riley watched a frigate cruise by at a moderate speed, then he turned around and walked out of the compartment.

**Galactic United Sovereign Nations (GUSN) Council Meeting: Gradus V**

**Gradus V, GUSN Assembly Station**

**0500 Hours**

The New Eden, Republic of Coercia, Van Treiden Sovereign State, Independent Commonwealth of United Suns, Valkyr Sovereign Nation and the Vilusian Sovereign Empire representatives entered the massive assembly hall and sat down at their respective seats. A computerized voice chimed

"The meeting may now commence."

The New Eden representative stood up, cleared his throat and spoke

"The Confederacy of United Suns and her allies have been more active in the past few weeks, they have been moving more military assets around the galaxy, the Confederates have been building more naval vessels, and they are assigning a large amount of ships to 'patrol' an asteroid field. I believe that they are preparing for war."

The Independent Commonwealth representative then stood up and said

"Yes, they are building more vessels. But after their two defeats at Kalloran II and at the Kraken Singularity, in which they lost an entire fleet to the Technocracy, and the recent disappearance of their First Fleet, they may be rebuilding their forces-"

He was cut off by the Van Treiden representative

"But that does not explain why they are moving an unusually large amount of transports and warships to a certain asteroid field. They are planning something." she said "It seems that they are building another five fleets, not just replacing their losses. And now, their weapons technology is advancing by leaps and bounds! Soon, they may be able to build fucking _frigates_ with the power to destroy a small moon!"

The Valkyr representative said

"I presume that they will be making a push into Technocracy territory, previous conflicts in their history have proved that assumption."

"But that does not explain this!" the Van Treiden representative stated, she pressed a button and a holo-projector came to life.

Five frigates, three Confederate, one Royal Aralonian and another MRA entered formation in front of a ring shaped structure, one neared the ring, several beams lanced out from the inside of the ring, the frigate neared the ring, then more joined the beams. A bright white light began to radiate from the center of the ring, then the image dissolved into a field of static.

"They are building another array of those galaxy-cleansing weapons! They are testing another one of them, and when they're done, they kill us all!"

**Nova Beta Armeston**

**Perchance City, Capital State**

**1200 Hours. November 22, 2792 PA**

"The two thousand, seven hundred, ninety-second Feast of Arrival is now being celebrated!" a news announcer shouted over the sound of a thousand people singing at the same time "As always, we begin with the Lighting of Prosperity."

The camera rotated to show a bright light rise over the peak of Mt. Prosperity, the light rose higher then emitted three rays, it glowed brighter and as the light rose, the rays began to match the profile of the mountain, various Forerunner glyphs and symbols flared to life on the surface of the mountain, then the light suddenly disappeared, leaving the the glyphs on the mountain, then they flared and disappeared. The massive ringworld structure orbiting Armeston eclipsed the local star, Verdant. The ring-shaped shadow covered the entire Peace Mountain Range and the valley leading to Perchance City while leaving the City herself in full sunlight. Fireworks positioned on hovering platforms above the slopes of the mountain launched into the air, then detonated. A large cargo hover with holographic signs on its flanks that read "O' Donnell Records" floated past the crowd before stopping in front of an O' Donnell Records store, presumably to unload its cargo, it gently touched down, then after a few seconds it exploded, showering the crowd with shrapnel, glass and shards of broken data crystals. Some were knocked to the floor by the shockwave that followed, people fell, shards of metal and glass embedded in their bodies, their wounds either fatal or minor. Some were dead before they reached the ground, and others were bleeding to death on the ubercrete pathway. The crowd panicked and stampeded, the fallen were crushed by the thousands of feet that led their owners to presumed safety. Then another, larger charge detonated, destroying the entire block and carving a small crater in the ground.

**Two Hours Later**

A group of SWAT, Bomb Disposal, Explosives Analysis and even Confederate Planetary Civilian Defense hover-trucks were clustered around the crater. Bomb Disposal teams examined the wreckage and the surrounding area for bomblets and other active munitions. An EA Team went into the crater to search for samples of the two charges and possibly their detonators. Lt. Max O' Brien was the explosives expert, Pvt. Shayne McHenderson was the tech expert, and Maj. Ryan O' Ferguson was the team leader.

Max found a broken piece of metal covered in a strange sky-blue powder it looked similar, and it was definitely something not made in the Confederacy, he activated his portable analysis station and placed the metal inside it, the station itself was a chemistry lab packed and compressed into a backpack sized casing, it also contained the hardware to support a 'dumb' AI, various probes and devices analyzed the sample. After a few seconds, the molecular structure of the explosive was displayed on the screen.

"Hey guys! Over here!" Max called out.

"Yeah, we'll be there in a second." Ryan said, acting as the group.

"Wait! I think I found something, I think it's a piece of the detonator." Shayne said

"Let me see." Ryan asked

"Sure." Shayne said while handing it to him

The piece of the detonator was L-shaped and had a 1x1 inch projection on one end.

"There seems to be a loose piece." Max said, peering closer

Indeed, there was a loose piece; one-half of a centimeter was protruding from a slot in the square projection. Shayne tried to pull it out to the disagreement of the other members. It slid out easily and revealed that there was a transparent circle in the middle of it.

"It's a data crystal chip, so it can't be a detonator." Max said

"Not unless it's made in the Confederacy, we're the only ones that make these security detonators. And our bombers didn't know, because they're hidden." Shayne countered

"_These Security Detonators store a log of its buyer, the time of activation and the time of detonation in a hidden data crystal chip. The chip is stored in a 1x1 inch projection on an L-shaped Hubnesterium plate." Shayne's instructor said._

"Wait, I'll go see check if my assumption is correct." Max said.

He walked over to the analysis station he said

"The bomb was made using _Explosiva Demolishonika Experemantalia_. It's Coercian, the powder's a typical by-product in Coercian explosives."

"Ah damn. It's almost an act of war." Ryan said.

**Low Orbit over Coruscant**

**1700 Hours**

"Damn!" Kazimir cursed

The ship groaned and rumbled as her shields took another hit from a super-laser. They flared out and dissipated as Kazimir ran to the bridge.

Kazimir ran through the opening doorway into the bridge. He stumbled and nearly fell as another super-laser hit and took down another section of her shields. Kazimir reached the command station, he sat down on the chair and ran his hands over the controls, he manually targeted the three available antimatter beam cannons then set them to full power, as in their previous engagements; he had them set to only ten percent power. He touched the red control on the holographic console in front of him, three white beams of fire lanced from their projectors and destroyed their targets, three Super Star Destroyers were vaporized and some of their escorts annihilated by the antimatter.

**New Republic Cruiser "Restoration"**

**1705 Hours**

Commander Richard Donaldson stared at the power readouts coming from their flagship. They were massive, even more than what the Death Star II could put out, at least twenty times. Three white beams lanced towards three Super Star Destroyers, he though their shields would hold, but instead, the beams cut through the ships like a white-hot monomolecular blade through butter. The ships exploded, leaving minute debris fields behind. He shivered at the sheer display of raw power; he wondered what kind of reactors could fuel those weapons.

**Confederate Flagship '**_**Shadow of the Day'**_**: Bridge**

**Low Orbit over Coruscant**

**1710 Hours**

"Sir, our frigates are almost down to zero. I recommend that we retreat back to Tanis Base to rebuild our forces." An officer suggested

"Then let's get it over with! NAVCOM, plot a course back to Tanis. And Katrina"

"Yes?" the AI asked as she materialized

"Warm up our jump drives and sync the fleet." Kazimir ordered

"Aye sir!" she disappeared.

A tense minute passed before blue whirlpools began to envelop the coalition's ships. As the fleet disappeared into the whirlpools, a super-laser struck the _Shadow of the Day _on her rear, collapsing the shield and ripping an engine off, she lurched as she disappeared into the whirlpool. Then the fleet disappeared in a flash of light.

**New Republic Cruiser "Restoration"**

**1711.5 Hours**

Richard sighed in relief as the fleet retreated, and the first real damage dealt to their 'super-capital' vessel. But what was more surprising was that it _survived_ a super-laser blast, one that was supposed to destroy an entire planet, he shivered at the thought. He hoped that there were no ships bigger than that, but he was wrong.

**Confederate Flagship '**_**Shadow of the Day'**_**: Bridge**

**Slipspace**

**2300 Hours**

"Sir, the blast has thrown our jump drive out of alignment. We could be several galactic radii off-course. And without a reference point, we could be stranded in space for an indefinite amount of time!" Katrina reported.

"No we won't." Kazimir said, he knew that when Katrina said indefinite, she almost always meant 'forever' "We won't be stuck in nowhere forever Kat. We'll find a way."

"Sir" the DACON officer interrupted "the blast has destroyed the center engine and has blown several of our capacitors. We will be unable to fire our heavier weapons, our shields will be at quarter-strength and our jump range is reduced for the following jumps."

"Shit!" Kazimir cursed.

"The jump-field is destabilizing, we are dropping out of slipspace in three." An officer stated.

Almost at once, the random, yet orderly threadlike patterns of slipspace began to unravel. The ebbing tide of energy receded and dissipated, and then in a flash of light, the entire fleet came out of slipspace.

**Nova Beta Armeston**

**Low Orbit**

**2305 Hours. January 26, 2793 PA**

Armeston, reeling from the recent terror attacks had tightened security and another fleet posted as guard. Civilian space traffic was limited to no personal spacecraft, a maximum of one hundred civilian transports and three hundred cargo transporters, minor riots had broken out at the news but were quickly pacified by the reasons why. More defense stations had been built and relocated to defend the planet, shields had been erected over cities and towns, while the three asteroid belts in the system had been strip-mined to supply the new orbital shipyard in orbit around Hope, the third natural satellite of Armeston. Three hundred thousand miles away, several hundred slipspace ruptures began to form.

**Hiigarian Patrol Fleet; Ion Beam Frigate "Without Prior Warning"**

**Near Garden of Kadesh**

**2300 Hours**

Petty Officer Kiara Soban yawned as she patrolled the hallways of the frigate; the soft thrumming of her drives filled her ears while the warm, humid air irritated his lungs. She shone her flashlight down the corridor, not expecting anything. Something crossed her field of view, and in a split second,she drew and readied his handgun. She applied the final pound of pressure on the firing stud and a single report echoed throughout the hallway, she shone his flashlight to the impact point. There was a small rat-sized creature lying on the floor, it was a skith, a native to Hiigaria. She wondered how one might have gotten aboard, and then she remembered her roommate, Joanna from the UNSC, she had bought one while they were aboard Tanis Base, and it had gotten out of its cage a day ago.

"I'm going to have to tell her about this." She said to herself "Damn, I think I should end my shift."

As she neared the door, a panel flickered to life, it glowed an angry red. She placed her hand on it and the panel glowed green as the door slid open with a whirr. She winced as she made the transition from dimly-lit corridors to brightly lit hallways; a few people were up, either ending their shifts or starting them. She walked to her room and as she laid her hand on the security lock the ship groaned, as if in pain.

"What on Kharak?" she thought

Her query was immediately answered

"All personnel please report to your battle stations. We are at combat alert Alpha." The ship's captain announced.

Doors immediately flew open as men and women rushed out of their rooms, the lights dimmed and turned red. The ship rumbled as her drives spooled up, Kiara felt the ship tilt as the frigate maneuvered. Kiara ran to the armory and hurriedly entered the keycode on her locker, she grabbed an assault rifle, a sidearm and several clips of ammunition, and then she ran into the ready room, where she hurriedly stepped into her armor. The silver faceplate glowed faintly as the armor powered up. The armor, having been provided by the Confederacy was powered armor, which included shields, strength and reaction time enhancements and even an integrated weapon, which fired small white-hot spikes of a strange silver metal at supersonic speeds.

"_It's like MJOLNIR for normal humans." A UNSC engineer commented._

The armor finished the power up sequence, Kiara ripped an umbilical off with her armored fingers and blurred out of the room, she placed holstered the sidearm and placed the assault rifle on her back, the magnetic plates held it in place. She took her place in front of a closed bulkhead.

"Ready! Five, Four, Three, Two… Open the bulkhead! One!" A sergeant shouted.

The bulkhead doors slid open, and a hundred _things_ spilled out of it, they died easily and even took a few of their comrades with them. But for every one killed, a dozen replaced it, a dozen jumped onto her and burst on her shields. A marine fell as the grotesque tentacle things swarmed him. If he was screaming, she didn't hear it over the roar of gunfire. Seconds later, something burst from the mount of tentacles and flesh. She stared in horror at it, it was the same marine that fell mere seconds before, but his skin was green and his head bent back at an odd angle, a tentacle burst from his arm, it was a half-inch thick and over a meter long.

"Peter! Are you alright?" she asked, her voice almost inaudible over the gunfire

"_Or was it Victor?" _she thought _"Those Confederates all look alike!"_

The marine did not answer, and instead he raised the tentacle and whipped Kiara with it. Her shields flared and crackled as the tentacle hit her in the shoulder, she fell back slightly and the former marine emptied a clip into her shields, hundreds of the small skittering creatures were swarming around her feet. It was a literal flood. Her shields fell and alarms began blaring into her ears. Then a stabbing pain hit her back, she fell and more of the small creatures swarmed around her, she felt pain everywhere but it hurt the most on her back, and she felt another presence enter her mind. Then all went black as the pain increased.

Some of the fleet had been infested by the Flood, and were now attempting to do the same to the rest. Several quantum waveforms manifested only kilometers away. A Hiigarian carrier and her escorts emerged from the non-Newtonian, non-Einsteinian realm of physics the quantum waveforms provided a portal to. However, the ships were not crewed and piloted by humans. But rather, the nanites and bio-organic circuitry that makes up the Beast. Detecting the Flood, it began launching infection beams at some of the infested frigates, but instead of the nanites tearing apart the sickly yellow-green flesh that was once human, Forerunner, Sangheili, or Unggoy. The Flood infestation retaliated, integrating the nanites into its design, and infecting the bio-organic circuitry that manifested from the still-struggling crew, or its forms.

Mass Driver rounds were being exchanged, explosions blossomed as missiles and shells slammed into the hulls of the two fleets. Both Beast and Flood controlled Strike-Craft rolled and weaved around streams of fire, either adding to the firestorm or being engulfed by it.

A human-piloted Hiigarian Multi-Gun Corvette shook as it was peppered with shells coming from a Flood controlled Scout, its guns locked onto the infested strike-craft and pounded it with large-caliber rounds, the shells entered the craft and exploded, tearing the scout apart. As the corvette sought another target, a Beast-infected Hive-Frigate fired its cannons at the craft, then launched its swarmers. The Corvette dove out of the shells' path as its guns tracked their own targets. Streams of fire erupted from the cannons and tore into the swarm. Explosions flashed to life as the swarmers exploded, large holes in their fragile hulls.

**Armeston Sphere of Influence**

**Three Hundred Thousand Miles from Armeston**

**2309 Hours. January 26, 2793 PA**

The First Fleet dropped out of the field, scarred and injured by the battle over Coruscant. The _Shadow of the Day_ was the most damaged, pitted and holed by the super-lasers, some of her massive capacitor banks burnt out as her shields struggled to dissipate the massive amounts of energy delivered by Imperial and Republic weapons. Kazimir ran a hand through his hair, a habit of his since childhood. Then he touched the glyph marked 'Hail', in its place, several options appeared. He touched the one marked 'nearest friendly ID'. The Command Screen displayed a Cruise Liner on the lower left hand corner of the communications display. Kazimir enlarged the communications display and touched the 'confirm' button. The main display flared to life, displaying a neatly kept bridge. Under the main display, was bar which read

"Captain Shayla O' Riley, Khar' Tan Trans-Solar Cruise Co."

Kazimir coughed to get her attention

"Who the hell is hailing me now?" she asked, the anger in her voice evident as she turned around

As she turned to face the screen, her eyes widened in shock.

"Mister President!" she said in shock "What happened to the fleet?"

"We'll save that for later," Kazimir said "the jump knocked our long range comm arrays out. So could I kindly use yours to hail the Capital?"

"Yes sir!" Shayla said.

The image on the display changed to another one, this time the inside of the Conference Room in the Capital Building. A meeting was taking place, debating whether or not to continue the search of the President. Several congressmen and women stood up as the screen flashed to life.

"Hello." Kazimir said

The room erupted into a madhouse of laughter and cheers. The now-obsolete papers were thrown into the air as a substitute for confetti.

"Thanks guys!" Kazimir said, smiling "Now let's get down to business."

The room settled down into a silence, waiting expectantly for Kazimir's next words.

"Okay, so the First Fleet, including me. Was transported by either some Technocracy weapon, a malfunction in our jump drives or a natural wormhole that was expanded by either the energy coming from our weapons or by some other means." He said "I'll tell you the rest later, when I get updated."

**Three Days Later**

"...and a day ago, Perchance was bombed, thousands died in the explosions. I am sorry to tell you about this Laina, but some of your friends have died in the blast."

Kazimir blinked at the news, Perchance was his hometown. The news was too much for him to handle. He closed his eyes and laid his head on the table, allowing everything to sink in. His sisters, Laina and Alisha looked on the verge of tears. Both of their eyes were bloodshot, and Alisha was sniffing. They had also heard the news of the deaths of their friends during the bombing.

­


	10. ATTN ALL PERSONNELL

Okay guys. I am sorry for the long wait for the next chapter, and I apologize for bringing your hopes up by posting this. But know that The Intergalactic Wars has not been abandoned, I have begun a project to rewrite it completely. So stay tuned!


	11. UPDATE 2

UPDATE 2

Rewritten first chapter, and therefore; story is here: .net/s/5255048/1/Tales_of_A_Confederacy_The_Intergalactic_Wars 


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